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

Summary


Let's summarize what we have learned in this chapter:

There is no camera object in WebGL. However, we can build one using the Model-View matrix.

3D objects undergo several transformations to be displayed on a 2D screen. These transformations are represented as 4x4 matrices.

Scene transformations are affine. Affine transformations are constituted by a linear transformation followed by a translation. WebGL groups affine transforms in three matrices: the Model-View matrix, the Perspective matrix, and the Normal matrix and one WebGL operation: gl.viewport().

Affine transforms are applied in projective space so they can be represented by 4x4 matrices. To work in projective space, vertices need to be augmented to contain an extra term, namely, w, which is called the perspective coordinate. The 4-tuple (x,y,z,w) is called homogeneous coordinates. Homogeneous coordinates allows representation of lines that intersect on infinity by making the perspective coordinate w = 0. Vectors always have...