I was wondering if the BeagleBoard has GPU accelerated EGL OpenVG support. I know it uses a PowerVR SGX530 GPU that on paper supports OpenVG, https://www.khronos.org/news/permalink/imagination_technologies_announces_openvg_1.1_conformance_for_powervr_sgx_r. I was wondering if there was software support, perhaps in the Beagleboard linux distro http://beagleboard.org/linux, https://github.com/beagleboard, or if independent implementation is feasible. I could not find any indication of OpenVG APIs existing, doing a quick search through the github repos that were labelled as being C code. Maybe there is a binary? I suppose the
Ångström Distribution might have support, http://beagleboard.org/project/angstrom/, https://github.com/Angstrom-distribution, but it appears to be no longer in common use by Beagleboard. One person commented that Debian was shipped with their board; however, another recent comment said that the newer versions are stable and not bricking their device.
I know that the Raspberry Pi’s Broadcom GPU has EGL OpenVG support http://elinux.org/Raspberry_Pi_VideoCore_APIs, https://github.com/raspberrypi/userland. I’ve been using it successfully for a personal project in C, and I would like to port the project to other embedded platforms.
However, the Odroid for example, which uses a Mali GPU, even though the GPU manufacturer claims to have OpenVG 1.1 support, http://www.arm.com/products/multimedia/mali-gpu/ultra-low-power/mali-450.php, there is no actual API and there is no way of independently implementing it:
- http://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?f=112&t=7915, Odroid’s lack of OpenVG support
- https://github.com/linux-sunxi/sunxi-mali/issues/3, people having trouble using the Mali GPU due to licensing issues
- http://www.cnx-software.com/2013/01/19/gpus-comparison-arm-mali-vs-vivante-gcxxx-vs-powervr-sgx-vs-nvidia-geforce-ulp/, in the comments there is discussion about the lack of Mali OpenVG support. Simon’s comment is especially pertinent. OpenVG is not implemented and you need the proprietary DDK to implement it.
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https://community.arm.com/thread/5763.person wondering if they can get the DDK for Mali
The Crank Storyboard on the BeagleBoard mentions OpenVG, http://www.cranksoftware.com/beagleboard. I know Qt has OpenVG support implemented on top of OpenGL, ShivaVG, https://doc.qt.io/qt-4.8/openvg.html. Looking through the forums, there is some mention of OpenVG, but I think that might be all in reference to the Qt version. There is a similar discussion on the forums from six years ago, “OpenVG and Qt”, which mentions Angstrom as having support, see grande blanca hamburguesa’s comment, https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/beagleboard/Ly6x0zEPhy4, but I don’t know if he was referring to a non-EGL version. The SGX530 does not appear to have OpenGL support, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerVR, so I guess the “OpenVG and Qt” forum people must be referring to native support. I also know that there is a partial OpenGL ES implementation of OpenVG, https://github.com/micahpearlman/MonkVG. But non-EGL implementations are beside the question, since those are achieving OpenVG in a non-native, roundabout way, not really taking full advantage of the GPU, as far as I am aware.
The thread, https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/beagleboard/openvg$20egl|sort:relevance/beagleboard/TvHel-NoCsY/rNkWB_k-bZEJ, mentions WSEGL.h, which I’m guessing is like the Pi’s egl.h and that it is hard to get, but the thread is seven years old. I found this page, http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/RN_5_01_01_02, which does not specify OpenVG support, and there is this . This page, http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/AM35x-OMAP35x_Graphics_SDK_Getting_Started_Guide, says that OpenVG is depreciated but that content is no longer maintained either. According to this post, https://e2e.ti.com/support/dsp/c6000_multi-core_dsps/f/639/t/147524, there is information about PVR2D in pvr2d.h but that is only available in the TI Graphics SDK binary as far as I can tell. There is no information about PVR2D outside of installing, and what information there is seems to be limited to header files. The release notes at http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/OMAP35x_Graphics_SDK_Release_Notes_Archive mention OpenVG support from version 4.07.00.01 and before, but there is no mention in later releases.
Hopefully this isn’t a repost. I did not see my original after waiting a few hours.