GLU stands for OpenGL Utility Library. It is an add-on library for OpenGL which provides procedures to: help create texture mipmaps, map coordinates between screen and object space, and create quadric surfaces and NURBS.

Open Inventor is many things: 1) An add-on library to OpenGL. 2) Defines a standard data format (the .iv format) for 3D data interchange. 3) A scene graph API. 4) A windowing system, and platform, independent 3D graphics library, like OpenGL. 5) Successor to IRIS Inventor and predecessor to VRML.