Quartz Composer

Quartz Composer is a node-based visual programming language provided as part of the Xcode development environment in Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger" and Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" for processing and rendering graphical data.

Quartz Composer uses OpenGL (including GLSL), Core Image, Core Video, JavaScript, and other technologies to build an API and a developer tool around a simple visual programming paradigm. Apple has embedded Quartz technologies deeply into the operating system. Compositions created in Quartz Composer can be played standalone in any QuickTime-aware application^[1] (although only on Mac OS X 10.4 and later), as a system Screen Saver^[2], from inside the Quartz Composer application, or can be embedded into a Cocoa or Carbon application via supplied user interface widgets. Because Quartz Composer makes extensive use of hardware acceleration and pixel shaders, it is recommended to have a recent graphics card with at least 32MB of VRAM^[3].