The Quesa Development Team has released Quesa 1.6d14, the latest version of their portable open source implementation of Apple’s QuickDraw 3D (QD3D) application programming interface (API). This release features full support for picking both 2D and 3D, fixes several memory leaks and crashes, and improves OpenGL behavior on Mac OS X and Windows.
Quesa is a cross-platform Open Source project that re-implements the QuickDraw 3D API under the LGPL (the GNU Lesser General Public License). It provides binary and source compatibility with Apple’s QuickDraw 3D, while supporting multiple platforms and operating systems.
Quesa doesn’t contain any Apple source code, and was developed without access to Apple’s QD3D implementation, according to the development team. QuickDraw 3D (QD3D) supports both retained and immediate mode rendering, an extensible file format, plug-in renderers, a wide range of high level geometries, hierarchical models, and a consistent and object-orientated API, the team said. Quesa can sit on top other lower-level (application programming interfaces (APIs, such as OpenGL or Direct3D), and provide the “scene graph” level of organization that these APIs typically lack.
Besides the previously mentioned changes, Quesa 1.6d14 has added support for transparent and animated textures; new API calls for intersection tests, not present in QD3D; new API calls for geometry projection, not present in QD3D; and support for screen space subdivision of NURBs.
For more information about Quesa, or to obtain pre-built binaries and demo applications for Mac OS and Windows, cruise on over to the Quesa Web site.