HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
WebGL JavaScript Libraries
At the start of this section, we promised to show you some libraries that can be used with We-
bGL to make it easier to develop applications. Here are some of the more interesting libraries
and projects.
Google O3D
Google's O3D library
was once a browser plug-in, but has now been released as a standalone
JavaScript library for WebGL. The examples of using O3D with JavaScript—including a
fairly spectacular 3D pool game—are very impressive. O3D allows you to load COLLADA
3D models created with Google SketchUp (as well as other 3D packages).
The required code looks about as complex as straight WebGL code, so while this is very
powerful,youmightwanttolookatsomeoftheotherlibrariesherefirstifyouarejuststarting
out.
C3DL
Thetaglinefor
C3DL
is“WebGLmadeeasy!”C3DL,or“Canvas3DJSLibrary,”issimilarto
GLGE, but it seems to have a head start thanks to a larger API and more support. This library
also appears to be slanted toward games; a real-time strategy (RTS) and an arcade game are
featured as its more prominent demos. The library supports COLLADA models, and the code
also appears very straightforward to implement.
SpiderGL
“3D Graphics for Next-Generation WWW” is how
SpiderGL
bills itself to the world. This
library appears to be very similar to GLGE and C3DL, except that the demos focus more on
lighting,color,andtexturesthanongamesandapplications.ItalsosupportsCOLLADAmod-
els.
SceneJS
SceneJS
is geared toward rendering 3D scenes built as COLLADA JSON models in WebGL.
Youcanalsodefineandmanipulate3Dscenes.Loadingandrenderingthemodelsisastraight-
forward process, and the results are quite impressive.
CopperLicht
This commercial library
advertises itself as the “fast WebGL JavaScript 3D Engine.” All the
demos are game-oriented, and the library supports many commercial 3D formats. It has both
collision detection and physics built in. The demos are fast and are fun to play. This library
