Speed up OpenGL ES or OpenGL app development. Use math libraries, background texture loading, pre-created shader effects, and a standard view and view controller to implement your rendering loop.
SDKs
- iOS 5.0+
- macOS 10.8+
- Mac Catalyst 13.0+Beta
- tvOS 9.0+
Overview
The GLKit framework provides functions and classes that reduce the effort required to create new shader-based apps or to port existing apps that rely on fixed-function vertex or fragment processing provided by earlier versions of OpenGL ES or OpenGL.
GLKit Features
GLKit provides functionality in four key areas:
Texture loading allows your app to easily load textures from a variety of sources. Textures can even be loaded asynchronously in the background with just a few lines of code. For more information, see
GLKTexture.Loader Math libraries provide commonly used vector, quaternion and matrix operations. These implementations are optimized to provide great performance.
Effects provide standard implementations of common shader effects. You configure the effect and the associated vertex data; the effect creates and loads an appropriate shader. GLKit includes three effects: The
GLKBaseclass implements a critical subset of the OpenGL ES 1.1 shading and lighting model, theEffect GLKReflectionclass extends the base effect to include reflection mapping support, and theMap Effect GLKSkyboxclass provides an implementation of a skybox effect.Effect Views and View Controllers provide a standard implementation of an OpenGL ES view and a corresponding view controller. This reduces the amount of code needed to create an iOS app that use OpenGL ES. For more information, see
GLKViewandGLKView.Controller
On iOS, GLKit requires an OpenGL ES 2.0 context. In macOS, GLKit requires an OpenGL context that supports the OpenGL 3.2 Core Profile.