Posted by, Laurence Moroney, Developer Advocate
Vulkan is the new generation, open standard API for efficient access to graphics and compute on modern GPUs. In this episode of Coffee with a Googler, Laurence meets with Shannon Woods, a Technical Program Manager in Google’s rendering teams to talk about plumbing code from your app down to the GPU!
Historically mobile apps have used Open GL ES to communicate with the GPU, but the hardware and API have evolved separately, impacting efficiency. Vulkan has been designed to organize the graphics space in much the same way as the underlying GPU, so it can be more efficient.
Android will support both Open GL ES and Vulkan, so developers can choose which API is right for them — and with Vulkan, precise control over the commands executed by the GPU allows for great optimization, as well as parallelization of code.
We also learn about the famous Utah Teapot, a standard reference object for 3D modellers, and how it is found in popular culture -- such as showing up in most animated movies. Have you spotted it?
Watch this episode for some great guidance from Shannon on what you need to do as a developer to prepare for Vulkan, and how using could be of benefit to your apps!
