WebGL (Short for Web Graphics Library) is a
JavaScript
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior, of ...
API
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...
for rendering interactive 2D and 3D graphics within any compatible
web browser
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...
without the use of
plug-ins.
WebGL is fully integrated with other
web standards
Web standards are the formal, non-proprietary standards and other technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. In recent years, the term has been more frequently associated with the trend of endorsing a set of s ...
, allowing GPU-accelerated usage of physics and image processing and effects as part of the web page canvas. WebGL elements can be mixed with other
HTML
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaSc ...
elements and composited with other parts of the page or page background.
WebGL programs consist of control code written in JavaScript and
shader
In computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that calculates the appropriate levels of light, darkness, and color during the rendering of a 3D scene - a process known as ''shading''. Shaders have evolved to perform a variety of speci ...
code that is written in
OpenGL ES Shading Language (GLSL ES), a language similar to
C or
C++
C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...
, and is executed on a computer's
graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, m ...
(GPU). WebGL is designed and maintained by the
non-profit
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
Khronos Group
The Khronos Group, Inc. is an open, non-profit, member-driven consortium of 170 organizations developing, publishing and maintaining royalty-free interoperability standards for 3D graphics, virtual reality, augmented reality, parallel computation ...
.
On February 9, 2022
Khronos Group
The Khronos Group, Inc. is an open, non-profit, member-driven consortium of 170 organizations developing, publishing and maintaining royalty-free interoperability standards for 3D graphics, virtual reality, augmented reality, parallel computation ...
announced WebGL 2.0 support for all major browsers.
Design
WebGL 1.0 is based on
OpenGL ES 2.0 and provides an
API
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...
for 3D graphics.
[ It uses the ]HTML5
HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML ...
canvas element
The canvas element is part of HTML5 and allows for dynamic, scriptable rendering of 2D shapes and bitmap images. It is a low level, procedural model that updates a bitmap. HTML5 Canvas also helps in making 2D games.
While the HTML5 canvas off ...
and is accessed using Document Object Model
The Document Object Model (DOM) is a cross-platform and language-independent interface that treats an XML or HTML document as a tree structure wherein each node is an object representing a part of the document. The DOM represents a document wi ...
(DOM) interfaces.
WebGL 2.0 is based on OpenGL ES 3.0
OpenGL for Embedded Systems (OpenGL ES or GLES) is a subset of the OpenGL computer graphics rendering application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D computer graphics such as those used by video games, typically hardware-accele ...
and made guaranteed availability of many optional extensions of WebGL 1.0 and exposes new APIs.[ ]Automatic memory management
In computer science, garbage collection (GC) is a form of automatic memory management. The ''garbage collector'' attempts to reclaim memory which was allocated by the program, but is no longer referenced; such memory is called '' garbage''. ...
is provided implicitly by JavaScript
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior, of ...
.
Like OpenGL ES 2.0, WebGL does not have the fixed-function
Fixed-function is a term canonically used to contrast 3D graphics APIs and earlier GPUs designed prior to the advent of shader-based 3D graphics APIs and GPU architectures.
History
Historically fixed-function APIs consisted of a set of functio ...
APIs introduced in OpenGL 1.0 and deprecated
In several fields, especially computing, deprecation is the discouragement of use of some terminology, feature, design, or practice, typically because it has been superseded or is no longer considered efficient or safe, without completely removing ...
in OpenGL 3.0. This functionality, if so required, has to be implemented by the end-developer by providing shader code and configuring data bindings in JavaScript.
Shaders in WebGL are expressed directly in GLSL and passed to the WebGL API as textual strings. The WebGL implementation compiles these shader instructions to GPU code. This code is executed for each and every vertex sent through the API and for each pixel rasterized
In computer graphics, rasterisation (British English) or rasterization (American English) is the task of taking an image described in a vector graphics format (shapes) and converting it into a raster image (a series of pixels, dots or lines, whic ...
to the screen.
History
WebGL evolved out of the Canvas 3D experiments started by Vladimir Vukićević
Vladimir Vukićević (born 29 April 1979), is a Serbian-born American software engineer who has worked on many open source projects. He is known mostly for his work on open-source graphics libraries, including those used in the Mozilla project ...
at Mozilla
Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, w ...
. Vukićević first demonstrated a Canvas 3D prototype in 2006. By the end of 2007, both Mozilla and Opera had made their own separate implementations.
In early 2009, the non-profit
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
technology consortium Khronos Group
The Khronos Group, Inc. is an open, non-profit, member-driven consortium of 170 organizations developing, publishing and maintaining royalty-free interoperability standards for 3D graphics, virtual reality, augmented reality, parallel computation ...
started the WebGL Working Group, with initial participation from Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...
, Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
, Mozilla, Opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
, and others.[ Version 1.0 of the WebGL specification was released March 2011.][ As of March 2012, the chair of the working group is Ken Russell.
Early applications of WebGL include ]Zygote Body
ZygoteBody, formerly Google Body, is a web application by Zygote Media Group that renders manipulable 3D anatomical models of the human body. Several layers, from muscle tissues down to blood vessels, can be removed or made transparent to allo ...
. In November 2012 Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartere ...
announced that they ported most of their applications to the cloud running on local WebGL clients. These applications included Fusion 360 and AutoCAD 360.
Development of the WebGL 2 specification started in 2013 with final in January 2017. This specification is based on OpenGL ES 3.0.
First implementations are in Firefox 51, Chrome 56 and Opera 43.
Implementations
Almost Native Graphics Layer Engine
Almost Native Graphics Layer Engine (ANGLE) is an open source graphic engine which implements WebGL 1.0 (2.0 which closely conforms to ES 3.0) and OpenGL ES
OpenGL for Embedded Systems (OpenGL ES or GLES) is a subset of the OpenGL computer graphics rendering application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D computer graphics such as those used by video games, typically hardware-accele ...
2.0 and 3.0 standards. It is a default backend for both Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox on Windows platforms and works by translating WebGL and OpenGL calls to available platform-specific APIs. ANGLE currently provides access to OpenGL ES 2.0 and 3.0 to desktop OpenGL, OpenGL ES, Direct3D 9, and Direct3D 11 APIs. ″oogle
A gutter punk is a homeless or transient individual who displays a variety of specific lifestyle traits and characteristics that often, but not always, are associated with the punk subculture. Attributes may include unkempt dreadlocks, nose rings ...
''Chrome uses ANGLE for all graphics rendering on Windows, including the accelerated Canvas2D implementation and the Native Client sandbox environment.″''
Software
# WebGL is widely supported by modern browsers. However its availability is dependent on other factors like the GPU supporting it. The official WebGL website offers a simple test page. More detailed information (like what renderer the browser uses, and what extensions are available) is provided at third-party websites.
Desktop browsers
* Google Chrome – WebGL 1.0 has been enabled on all platforms that have a capable graphics card with updated drivers since version 9, released in February 2011. By default on Windows, Chrome uses the ANGLE
In Euclidean geometry, an angle is the figure formed by two rays, called the '' sides'' of the angle, sharing a common endpoint, called the '' vertex'' of the angle.
Angles formed by two rays lie in the plane that contains the rays. Angles a ...
(Almost Native Graphics Layer Engine) renderer to translate OpenGL ES to Direct X 9.0c or 11.0, which have better driver support. On Linux and Mac OS X the default renderer is OpenGL however. It is also possible to force OpenGL as the renderer on Windows. Since September 2013, Chrome also has a newer Direct3D 11 renderer, which however requires a newer graphics card. Chrome 56+ supports WebGL 2.0.
* Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current ...
– WebGL 1.0 has been enabled on all platforms that have a capable graphics card with updated drivers since version 4.0. Since 2013 Firefox also uses DirectX on the Windows platform via ANGLE
In Euclidean geometry, an angle is the figure formed by two rays, called the '' sides'' of the angle, sharing a common endpoint, called the '' vertex'' of the angle.
Angles formed by two rays lie in the plane that contains the rays. Angles a ...
. Firefox 51+ supports WebGL 2.0.
* Safari – Safari 6.0 and newer versions installed on OS X Mountain Lion
OS X Mountain Lion (version 10.8) is the ninth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. OS X Mountain Lion was released on July 25, 2012, for purchase and download through Apple's Mac Ap ...
, Mac OS X Lion
OS X Lion, also known as Mac OS X Lion, (version 10.7) is the eighth major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Mac computers.
A preview of OS X 10.7 Lion was publicly shown at the "Back to the Mac" Apple Speci ...
and Safari 5.1 on Mac OS X Snow Leopard
Mac OS X Snow Leopard (version 10.6) is the seventh major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers.
Snow Leopard was publicly unveiled on June 8, 2009 at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. ...
implemented support for WebGL 1.0, which was disabled by default before Safari 8.0. Safari version 12 (available in MacOS Mojave) has available support for WebGL 2.0, currently as an "Experimental" feature.
* Opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
– WebGL 1.0 has been implemented in Opera 11 and 12, although was disabled by default in 2014. Opera 43+ supports WebGL 2.0.
* Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Windows line of operating systems ( ...
– WebGL 1.0 is partially supported in Internet Explorer 11
Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) is the eleventh, final, and now deprecated version of the Internet Explorer web browser. It was initially included in the release of Windows 8.1, Windows RT 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 on October 17, 2013, and was ...
. It initially failed the majority of official WebGL conformance tests, but Microsoft later released several updates. The latest 0.94 WebGL engine currently passes ~97% of Khronos tests. WebGL support can also be manually added to earlier versions of Internet Explorer using third-party plugins such as IEWebGL.
* Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Edge is a proprietary, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft. It was first released in 2015 as part of Windows 10 and Xbox One and later ported to other platforms as a fork of Google's Chromium open-source project: Android ...
– For Microsoft Edge Legacy, the initial stable release supports WebGL version 0.95 (context name: "experimental-webgl") with an open source GLSL to HLSL
The High-Level Shader Language or High-Level Shading Language (HLSL) is a proprietary shading language developed by Microsoft for the Direct3D 9 API to augment the shader assembly language, and went on to become the required shading language ...
transpiler
A source-to-source translator, source-to-source compiler (S2S compiler), transcompiler, or transpiler is a type of translator that takes the source code of a program written in a programming language as its input and produces an equivalent sou ...
. Version 10240+ supports WebGL 1.0 as prefixed. Latest Chromium-based Edge supports WebGL 2.0.
Mobile browsers
* BlackBerry 10
BlackBerry 10 is a discontinued proprietary mobile operating system for the BlackBerry line of smartphones, both developed by BlackBerry Limited (formerly Research In Motion). BlackBerry 10 is based on QNX, a Unix-like operating system that was ...
– WebGL 1.0 is available for BlackBerry devices since OS version 10.00
* BlackBerry PlayBook
The BlackBerry PlayBook is a Tablet computer#Mini tablets, mini tablet computer developed by BlackBerry (company), BlackBerry and made by Quanta Computer, an original design manufacturer (ODM). – WebGL 1.0 is available via WebWorks and browser in PlayBook OS 2.00
* Android Browser – Basically unsupported, but the Sony Ericsson Xperia range of Android smartphones have had WebGL capabilities following a firmware upgrade. Samsung smartphones also have WebGL enabled (verified on Galaxy SII (4.1.2) and Galaxy Note 8.0 (4.2)). Supported in Google Chrome that replaced the Android browser in many phones (but is not a new standard Android Browser).
* Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Windows line of operating systems ( ...
– Prefixed WebGL 1.0 is available on Windows Phone
Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design l ...
8.x (11+)
* Firefox for mobile
Firefox for Android is a web browser developed by Mozilla for Android smartphones and tablet computers. As with its desktop version, it uses the Gecko layout engine, and supports features such as synchronization with Firefox Sync, blocking web ...
– WebGL 1.0 is available for Android and MeeGo devices since Firefox 4.
* Firefox OS
Firefox OS (project name: ''Boot to Gecko'', also known as ''B2G'') is a discontinued open-source operating system made for smartphones, tablet computers, smart TVs, and dongles designed by Mozilla and external contributors. It is based on the ...
* Google Chrome – WebGL 1.0 is available for Android devices since Google Chrome 25 and enabled by default since version 30.
* Maemo
Maemo is a software platform originally developed by Nokia, now developed by the community, for smartphones and Internet tablets. The platform comprises both the Maemo operating system and SDK. Maemo played a key role in Nokia's strategy to c ...
– In Nokia N900
The Nokia N900 is a smartphone made by Nokia. It supersedes the Nokia N810. Its default operating system, Maemo 5, is a Linux-based OS originally developed for the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. It is the first Nokia device based upon the Texas ...
, WebGL 1.0 is available in the stock microB browser from the PR1.2 firmware update onwards.
* MeeGo
MeeGo is a discontinued Linux distribution hosted by the Linux Foundation, using source code from the operating systems Moblin (produced by Intel) and Maemo (produced by Nokia). Primarily targeted at mobile devices and information appliances ...
– WebGL 1.0 is unsupported in the stock browser "Web." However, it is available through Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current ...
.
* Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Edge is a proprietary, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft. It was first released in 2015 as part of Windows 10 and Xbox One and later ported to other platforms as a fork of Google's Chromium open-source project: Android ...
– Prefixed WebGL 1.0 is available on Windows 10 Mobile.
* Opera Mobile
Opera Mobile is a mobile web browser for smartphones, tablets and PDAs developed by Opera.
History
The first devices to run a mobile edition of Opera were the Psion Series 5, Psion Series 5mx, Psion Series 7, and then Psion netBook. They ra ...
– Opera Mobile 12 supports WebGL 1.0 (on Android only).
* Sailfish OS
Sailfish OS is a Linux-based operating system based on free software, and open source projects such as Mer as well as including a closed source UI. The project is being developed by the Finnish company Jolla.
The OS first shipped with the ...
– WebGL 1.0 is supported in the default Sailfish browser.
* Tizen – WebGL 1.0 is supported
* iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...
– WebGL 1.0 is available for mobile Safari, in iOS 8
iOS 8 is the eighth major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iOS 7. It was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 2, 2014, and was released on September 17, ...
.
Tools and ecosystem
Utilities
The low-level nature of the WebGL API, which provides little on its own to produce desirable 3D graphics quickly, contributed to creation of libraries which are typically used to build things up in 3D graphics (e.g. view transformations for shader
In computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that calculates the appropriate levels of light, darkness, and color during the rendering of a 3D scene - a process known as ''shading''. Shaders have evolved to perform a variety of speci ...
s, view frustum etc.). Basic tasks such as loading scene graph
Scene (from Greek σκηνή ''skēnḗ'') may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* Scene (subculture), a youth subculture from the early 2000s characterized by a distinct music and style. Groups and performers
* The Scene who rec ...
s and 3D objects in the popular industry formats is also abstracted by the libraries (some of which were ported
In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...
to JavaScript from other languages) to provide additional functionality. A non-exhaustive list of libraries that provide many high-level features includes A-Frame (VR)
BabylonJS
PlayCanvas, three.js, OSG.JS and CopperLicht
CopperLicht is an open-source JavaScript library for creating games and interactive 3D applications using WebGL, developed by Ambiera. The aim of the library is to provide an API for making it easier developing 3D content for the web. It is supp ...
. X3D
X3D is a royalty-free ISO/IEC standard for declaratively representing 3D computer graphics. File format support includes XML, ClassicVRML, Compressed Binary Encoding (CBE) and a draft JSON encoding. X3D became the successor to the Virtual Re ...
also made a project called X3DOM to make X3D and VRML
VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language, pronounced ''vermal'' or by its initials, originally—before 1995—known as the Virtual Reality Markup Language) is a standard file format for representing 3-dimensional (3D) interactive vector graph ...
content running on WebGL. The 3D model will in XML tag
in HTML5
HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML ...
and interactive script will use JavaScript and DOM. BS Content Studio and InstantReality X3D exporter can exported X3D in HTML and running by WebGL.
Games
There also has been a rapid emergence of game engines for WebGL, both 2D and 3D, including Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game '' Unreal''. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of g ...
4 and Unity
Unity may refer to:
Buildings
* Unity Building, Oregon, Illinois, US; a historic building
* Unity Building (Chicago), Illinois, US; a skyscraper
* Unity Buildings, Liverpool, UK; two buildings in England
* Unity Chapel, Wyoming, Wisconsin, US; ...
. The Stage3D
Stage3D ( codenamed ''Molehill'') is an Adobe Flash Player API for rendering interactive 3D graphics with GPU-acceleration, within Flash games and applications. Flash Player or AIR applications written in ActionScript 3 may use Stage3D to rend ...
/Flash-based Away3D
Away3D is an open-source platform for developing interactive 3D graphics for video games and applications, in Adobe Flash or HTML5. The platform consists of a 3D world editor (Away Builder), high-level library also has a port to WebGL via TypeScript
TypeScript is a free and open source programming language developed and maintained by Microsoft. It is a strict syntactical superset of JavaScript and adds optional static typing to the language. It is designed for the development of large app ...
. A more light-weight utility library that provides just the vector and matrix math utilities for shaders is sylvester.js. It is sometimes used in conjunction with a WebGL specific extension called glUtils.js.
There are also some 2D libraries built on top of WebGL like Cocos2d
Cocos2d is a free software framework. It can be used to build games, apps and other cross platform GUI based interactive programs.
Cocos2d contains many branches with the best known being Cocos2d-objc, Cocos2d-x, Cocos2d-html5 and Cocos2d-XN ...
-x or Pixi.js, which were implemented this way for performance reasons, in a move that parallels what happened with the Starling Framework
Starling is an open source game framework used to create 2D games that run both on mobile and desktop platforms. It recreates the traditional Flash display list architecture on top of accelerated graphics hardware. Several commercial games have ...
over Stage3D in the Flash world. The WebGL-based 2D libraries fall back to HTML5 canvas when WebGL is not available.
Removing the rendering bottleneck by giving almost direct access to the GPU also exposed performance limitations in the JavaScript implementations. Some were addressed by asm.js and WebAssembly
WebAssembly (sometimes abbreviated Wasm) defines a portable binary-code format and a corresponding text format for executable programs as well as software interfaces for facilitating interactions between such programs and their host environment ...
(similarly, the introduction of Stage3D exposed performance problems within ActionScript
ActionScript is an object-oriented programming language originally developed by Macromedia Inc. (later acquired by Adobe). It is influenced by HyperTalk, the scripting language for HyperCard. It is now an implementation of ECMAScript (meaning ...
, which were addressed by projects like CrossBridge
The sliding filament theory explains the mechanism of muscle contraction based on muscle proteins that slide past each other to generate movement. According to the sliding filament theory, the myosin ( thick filaments) of muscle fibers slide past ...
).
Content creation
Like for any other graphics API, creating content for WebGL scenes requires using a regular 3D content creation tool and exporting the scene to a format that is readable by the viewer or helper library. Desktop 3D authoring software such as Blender
A blender (sometimes called a mixer or liquidiser in British English) is a kitchen and laboratory appliance used to mix, crush, purée or emulsify food and other substances. A stationary blender consists of a blender container with a rotating me ...
, Autodesk Maya
Autodesk Maya, commonly shortened to just Maya ( ), is a 3D computer graphics application that runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, originally developed by Alias and currently owned and developed by Autodesk. It is used to create assets for interact ...
or SimLab Composer can be used for this purpose. Particularly, Blend4Web allows a WebGL scene to be authored entirely in Blender and exported to a browser with a single click, even as a standalone web page. There are also some WebGL-specific software such as CopperCube
__NOTOC__
CopperCube is a game engine with graphical editor developed by Ambiera. It is aimed primarily at non-programmers, for creating 3D applications in a drag-and-drop format based on a behavior and action-oriented logic system. Additional ...
and the online WebGL-based editor Clara.io. Online platforms such as Sketchfab
Sketchfab is a 3D modeling platform website to publish, share, discover, buy and sell 3D, VR and AR content. It provides a viewer based on the WebGL and WebXR technologies that allows users to display 3D models on the web, to be viewed on ...
and Clara.io allow users to directly upload their 3D models and display them using a hosted WebGL viewer.
Environment based tools
Additionally, Mozilla Foundation
The Mozilla Foundation (stylized as moz://a) is an American non-profit organization that exists to support and collectively lead the open source Mozilla project. Founded in July 2003, the organization sets the policies that govern development, ...
, in its Firefox browser, has implemented built-in WebGL tools starting with version 27 that allow editing vertex and fragment shaders. A number of other debugging and profiling tools have also emerged.
See also
* List of WebGL frameworks Frameworks are available to create WebGL content quickly and easily without building from the ground up.
Note: The following list mixes WebGL libraries with game engines as well as cloud services without any distinctions.
See also
* WebGL
* ...
* Experience Curiosity – WebGL simulation of the Mars rover ''Curiosity''
* WebVR
* Java OpenGL
Java OpenGL (JOGL) is a wrapper library that allows OpenGL to be used in the Java programming language. It was originally developed by Kenneth Bradley Russell and Christopher John Kline, and was further developed by the Sun Microsystems Game Techn ...
– OpenGL library for the Java programming language
* WebGPU
WebGPU is the working name for a future web standard and JavaScript API for accelerated graphics and compute, aiming to provide "modern 3D graphics and computation capabilities". It is developed by the W3C ''GPU for the Web'' Community Group wi ...
References
External links
*
WebGL
at the Mozilla Developer Network
{{Authority control
3D graphics APIs
Cross-platform software
Graphics libraries
Graphics standards
OpenGL
Web development