Vulkan, Metal, and DirectX 12 are lower-level graphics APIs that provide abstractions better suited towards the GPUs of today (big, big buffers of data, processed by shaders). These new APIs came about because OpenGL and DirectX have grown into handling too many things are are now themselves the source of many bottlenecks for pushing data to your GPU.
These APIs being lower level means they are harder to get into, you really have to understand how GPUs work to understand why these APIs are the way they are. If you want to know that then by all means, dive in! It's fascinating stuff, IMO.
To answer your specific question, yes, Vulkan is intended to replace OpenGL.
These APIs being lower level means they are harder to get into, you really have to understand how GPUs work to understand why these APIs are the way they are. If you want to know that then by all means, dive in! It's fascinating stuff, IMO.
To answer your specific question, yes, Vulkan is intended to replace OpenGL.