Install open-scene-graph with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• osgarchive
• osgconv
• osgfilecache
• osgversion
• osgviewer
• present3D

Project history

OpenSceneGraph began as the scene-graph component of Don Burns's Hang Gliding Simulator. Robert Osfield joined the work in 1999, took over the scene-graph element, and Burns and Osfield opened the code as a public project.

The early project moved quickly from hobby code into professional visualization use. The archived project history says visual-simulation professionals experimented with it, contributed to it, and began adopting it during the first year after the public page and alpha release.

Adoption history

Interest grew through 2000 as OpenSceneGraph became an open replacement for closed scene-graph technology. Robert Osfield formed OpenSceneGraph Professional Services in spring 2001, and Don Burns formed Andes Engineering in autumn 2001, reflecting a community large enough to sustain consulting, support, and commercial deployment around the library.

The project page describes OpenSceneGraph as established in visual simulation, space, scientific, oil-and-gas, games, and virtual-reality industries. It also points new projects toward VulkanSceneGraph, which positions OpenSceneGraph as a mature OpenGL-era toolkit with a successor for Vulkan-era work.

How it is used

Developers use OpenSceneGraph as both a library stack and a set of utilities. The Homebrew package exposes tools such as osgviewer for inspecting scene files, osgconv for conversion, osgarchive and osgfilecache for data handling, osgversion for build inspection, and present3D for presentations built on OSG.

Application teams use the library when they want C++ scene-graph abstractions above raw OpenGL: loaders, traversal, state management, culling, plugins, examples, and cross-platform build support generated with CMake.

Why package nerds care

OpenSceneGraph is a classic packaging knot because it is a graphics toolkit, plugin ecosystem, command-line tool suite, and ABI surface all at once. Packagers have to care about optional image/model plugins, CMake configuration, platform graphics backends, and downstream applications that may link against its libraries.

It is also historically interesting as a package that survived the transition from a public hobby release to professional simulation infrastructure, then into a maintenance-and-successor phase through VulkanSceneGraph.

Timeline

• 1999: Robert Osfield joined Don Burns's simulator work and the scene-graph component was opened to the public.
• 2000: interest in OpenSceneGraph as an open replacement for closed scene-graph products grew rapidly, according to the archived project history.
• Spring 2001: Robert Osfield created OpenSceneGraph Professional Services.
• Autumn 2001: Don Burns created Andes Engineering.
• 2018-04-26: the GitHub README build notes were signed by Robert Osfield as project lead.

Related projects

• VulkanSceneGraph is the successor project recommended by the OpenSceneGraph project page for new projects needing Vulkan and newer hardware features.
• OpenGL and CMake are central to how OpenSceneGraph applications are built and deployed.

Sources

• https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/open-scene-graph
• https://github.com/openscenegraph/OpenSceneGraph
• https://openscenegraph.github.io/OpenSceneGraphDotComBackup/OpenSceneGraph/www.openscenegraph.com/index.php/about/history.html
• https://openscenegraph.github.io/openscenegraph.io/