Related toolkits and APIs

Toolkits top on OpenGL

Many programming interfaces are layered on OpenGL with rich and varied functionality. Not all can interoperate.

Extension libraries

A extension libraries simplifies the work with OpenGL extensions.

GLEW

A extension library for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Irix, and Solaris.

GLee

A extension library for Windows, Linux and FreeBSD.

Scene graphs

A scene graph works on the top of OpenGL.

Open Scene Graph

This scene graph works on all Windows platforms, OSX, GNU/Linux, IRIX, Solaris and FreeBSD.

OpenSG

It's a scene graph which works on IRIX, Windows and Linux.

Game engines

Panda3D

A 3D game engine with python bindings.

Delta3D

Game engine based on Open Scene Graph and ODE.

Toolkits to bridge OpenGL and the Window System

OpenGL knows nothing about the surrounding window system. You need widget toolkit to bridge OpenGL and the window system. The widget toolkit abstract the interface for connecting the windows system and OpenGL like WGL, GLX and AGL away. There are many toolkits for that task. Most modern widget libraries provide this support.

Cross-platform Toolkits

GLUT

A simple Toolkit.

FLTK

A small widget library.

Qt

A toolkit which abstracts the Linux, MacOS X and Windows away.