Intermediate Graphics Library (IGL) is a cross-platform library that commands the GPU. It encapsulates common GPU functionality with a low-level cross-platform interface. IGL is designed to support multiple backends implemented on top of various graphics APIs (e.g. OpenGL, Metal and Vulkan) with a common interface.
There are a lot of good options for abstracting GPU API's; each making different trade-offs. We designed IGL around the following priorities:
- Low-level, forward-looking API. IGL embraces modern abstractions (command buffers, state containers, bindless, etc) and is designed to give more control than OpenGL's state machine API. As a result, IGL can have leaner backends for modern API's (e.g. Metal, Vulkan).
- Minimal overhead for C++. IGL supports new or existing native rendering code without overhead of language interop or the need for other language runtimes.
- Reach + scale in production. IGL has been globally battle-tested for broad device reliability (especially the long-tail of Android devices as well as Quest 2/3/Pro compatibility for OpenGL/Vulkan) and performance-tuned on our apps.
- Metal 2+
- OpenGL 2.x (requires GL_ARB_framebuffer_object)
- OpenGL 3.1+
- OpenGL ES 2.0+
- Vulkan 1.1 (requires VK_KHR_buffer_device_address and VK_EXT_descriptor_indexing)
- WebGL 2.0
- Android
- iOS
- Linux
- macOS
- Windows
- WebAssembly
| Windows | Linux | macOS | iOS | Android | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vulkan 1.1 | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ (MoltenVK) | ✖️ | ✔️ (Quest 2/3/Pro) |
| OpenGL ES 2.0 - 3.0 | ✔️ (Angle) | ✔️ (Angle) | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| OpenGL ES 3.1 - 3.2 | ✔️ (Angle) | ✔️ (Angle) | ✖️ | ✖️ | ✔️ |
| OpenGL 3.1 - 4.6 | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✖️ | ✖️ | ✖️ |
| Metal 2 | ✖️ | ✖️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✖️ |
Before building, run the deployment scripts:
python3 deploy_content.py
python3 deploy_deps.py
These scripts download external third-party dependencies. Please check [Dependencies] for the full list.
- Windows
cd build
cmake .. -G "Visual Studio 17 2022"
- Linux
sudo apt-get install clang xorg-dev libxinerama-dev libxcursor-dev libgles2-mesa-dev libegl1-mesa-dev libglfw3-dev libglew-dev libstdc++-12-dev
cd build
cmake .. -G "Unix Makefiles"
- macOS
cd build
cmake .. -G "Xcode" -DIGL_WITH_VULKAN=OFF
- iOS
cd build
cmake .. -G Xcode -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=../third-party/deps/src/ios-cmake/ios.toolchain.cmake -DPLATFORM=SIMULATOR64
- Android
The Gradle project is located within the build/android folder.
IGL is released under the MIT license, see LICENSE.md for the full text as well as third-party library acknowledgements. SparkSL Compiler is released under the SparkSL Compiler License, see LICENSE.md for full text.