Introduction to WebGL – BarCamp Bangkok 4

Here are my notes on my “introduction to WebGL” talk from BarCamp Bangkok 4.

NOTE: I said that Firefox 4 beta 6 shipped with WebGL on by default. That’s not true. One needs to go into about:config, search for ‘webgl’ and switch “webgl.enabled_for_all_sites” to ‘true’. Hopefully beta 7 will ship with WebGL on by default.

UPDATE: excellent overview video by Mozilla engineer Vlad Vukićević:
WebGL: Bringing 3D to the Web – 2010 GPU Technology Conference

Introduction to WebGL: 3D on the web
BarCamp Bangkok 4 (2010), Sripatum University

Presenter

• Gen Kanai
• “The Cost of Monoculture” (Microsoft monopoly in Korea)

What is WebGL?

• Web platform API for accelerated 3D rendering
• OpenGL ES in JavaScript
• available in Firefox 4 beta, Chromium, Webkit nightly

History of WebGL

• early prototype by Vladimir Vukićević (Mozilla) in 2006
• March 2009 – Khronos Working Group: Mozilla, Google, Apple, Opera
• December 2009 – WebGL draft

Architecture

• Web browser: WebGL
• OS drivers: OpenGL, OpenGL ES, Direct3D
• Graphics Hardware

Mobile?

• Firefox on Android, Maemo/Meego
• Webkit? (Android?)

Applications of WebGL

• gaming
• visualization
• marketing
• other?

WebGL developer libraries

• WebGLU
• GLGE
• C3DL
• Copperlicht
• SpiderGL
• SceneJS
• Processing.js
• XB PointStream
• others?

Demos

• WebGL-Particles-Demo
• WebGL Walker
• ChemDoodle
• Shader Toy v0.2
• SpiderGL – Streaming LoD Terrain
• SpiderGL – HDR Texture
• many others

Thank you

• Vladimir Vukićević (Mozilla)
• WebGL community

References

• http://www.khronos.org/webgl/
• http://planet-webgl.org/
• http://learningwebgl.com/blog/
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en/WebGL