Book Image

WebGL Beginner's Guide

Book Image

WebGL Beginner's Guide

Overview of this book

WebGL is a new web technology that brings hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the browser without installing additional software. As WebGL is based on OpenGL and brings in a new concept of 3D graphics programming to web development, it may seem unfamiliar to even experienced Web developers.Packed with many examples, this book shows how WebGL can be easy to learn despite its unfriendly appearance. Each chapter addresses one of the important aspects of 3D graphics programming and presents different alternatives for its implementation. The topics are always associated with exercises that will allow the reader to put the concepts to the test in an immediate manner.WebGL Beginner's Guide presents a clear road map to learning WebGL. Each chapter starts with a summary of the learning goals for the chapter, followed by a detailed description of each topic. The book offers example-rich, up-to-date introductions to a wide range of essential WebGL topics, including drawing, color, texture, transformations, framebuffers, light, surfaces, geometry, and more. With each chapter, you will "level up"ù your 3D graphics programming skills. This book will become your trustworthy companion filled with the information required to develop cool-looking 3D web applications with WebGL and JavaScript.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
WebGL Beginner's Guide
Credits
About the Authors
Acknowledgement
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

System requirements


WebGL is a web-based 3D Graphics API. As such there is no installation needed. At the time this book was written, you will automatically have access to it as long as you have one of the following Internet web browsers:

  • Firefox 4.0 or above

  • Google Chrome 11 or above

  • Safari (OSX 10.6 or above). WebGL is disabled by default but you can switch it on by enabling the Developer menu and then checking the Enable WebGL option

  • Opera 12 or above

To get an updated list of the Internet web browsers where WebGL is supported, please check on the Khronos Group web page following this link:

http://www.khronos.org/webgl/wiki/Getting_a_WebGL_Implementation

You also need to make sure that your computer has a graphics card.

If you want to quickly check if your current configuration supports WebGL, please visit this link:

http://get.webgl.org/