Teaching a Shader-Based Introduction to Computer Graphics

OpenGL has become the standard application programming interface (API) for teaching introductory computer graphics courses in computer science, engineering, and mathematics. Faculty can rely on many OpenGL features-such as its availability across platforms, its backward compatibility, and its defaults-to support a variety of teaching styles and course goals. More recently, OpenGL has changed radically to support new hardware features, and new versions of OpenGL necessitate reexamining and updating the "standard" way of teaching computer graphics.