Metal Programming Guide (PDF)

Master Metal: The Next-Generation Graphics and GPU Programming Platform for Apple Developers

Metal enables Apple developers to maximize performance in demanding tasks like 3D graphics, games, scientific programming, visualization, and GPU-accelerated machine learning. Metal® Programming Guide is the authoritative, practical guide to Metal for all iOS programmers who are interested in graphics programming but don't know where to start.

Pioneering Apple developer Janie Clayton covers everything from basic draw calls to advanced parallel computing, combining easy-to-understand conceptual explanations with well-tested Swift 4/Xcode 9 sample code (available for download at GitHub).

Clayton introduces the essential Metal, graphics, and math concepts every graphics programmer needs to know. She also discusses key graphics-specific libraries, concepts, and Metal Classes, presenting techniques and examples you'll find valuable for both graphics and data processing. Clayton also provides coverage of the Metal Compute Pipeline, demonstrating practical GPU programming applications ranging from image processing to neural networking.

• Quickly get a basic Metal project running
• Work with Metal resources and memory management
• Learn how shaders are compiled and accessed by the CPU
• Program both 2D and 3D graphics with Metal
• Import 3D models and assets from Blender, Maya, and other programs
• Apply imported textures to model objects
• Use multipass rendering to efficiently implement computationally expensive techniques
• Leverage tessellation to reduce mesh detail
• Use the GPU for a wide spectrum of general-purpose computing applications
• Get started with the Metal Performance Shaders Framework