Chromium Blog: Web Graphics – Past, Present and Future

Chromium Blog

News and developments from the open source browser project

Web Graphics – Past, Present and Future

Thursday, September 9, 2010

postedSVG and canvas: dynamic 2D

Mozilla's SVG butterfly
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC
"-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.1//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/1.1/DTD/svg11.dtd">
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
<path style="stroke-width:1; fill:rgb(246,127,0); stroke:none" d="M204.33 13..."/>
<path style="stroke-width:1; fill:rgb(0,0,0); stroke:none" d="M203.62 139.62..." />
<path style="stroke-width:1; fill:rgb(255,246,227); stroke:none"
d="M363.73 85.73 C359.27 86.29 355.23 86.73..."/>
</svg>

*note: ellipses replace many more points

Michael Deal’s canvas “Breathing Galaxies”d = document.getElementById("c");
c = d.getContext("2d");
...
i = 25;
while (i--) {
c.beginPath();
...
q = (R / r - 1) * t;
// create hypotrochoid from current mouse position, and setup variables (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypotrochoid)
x = (R - r) * C(t) + D * C(q) + ...
y = (R - r) * S(t) - D * S(q) + ...
if (a) {
// draw once two points are set
c.moveTo(a, b);
c.lineTo(x, y)
}
c.strokeStyle = "hsla(" + (U % 360) + ",100%,50%,0.75)";
// draw rainbow hypotrochoid
c.stroke();
...
} *note: ellipses replace code

CSS Transforms: easy to use 2D and 3D effects

Apple’s Cube Transition demo running in Chromium
/* CUBE */
#transitions #cube {
-webkit-transform-style: preserve-3d;
width: 600px;
height: 400px;
position: absolute;
}
#transitions #cube.active {
-webkit-animation-duration: 1s;
-webkit-animation-iteration-count: 1;
-webkit-animation-name: cubedemo;
-webkit-transform: rotateX(-90deg);
}
#transitions #cube .face {
position: absolute;
width: 600px;
height: 400px;
display: block;
overflow: hidden;
}
#transitions #cube .front {
-webkit-transform: scale3d(.835,.835,.835) translateZ(200px);
}
#transitions #cube .back {
-webkit-transform: scale3d(.835,.835,.835) rotateY(180deg) translateZ(200px);
}
#transitions #cube .top {
-webkit-transform: scale3d(.835,.835,.835) rotateX(90deg) translateZ(200px);
}

@-webkit-keyframes cubedemo {
0% {-webkit-transform: rotateX(0); -webkit-animation-timing-function: linear; }
50% {-webkit-transform: rotateX(-92deg);-webkit-animation-timing-function: ease-in; }
70% {-webkit-transform: rotateX(-84deg); -webkit-animation-timing-function: ease-in; }
80% {-webkit-transform: rotateX(-90deg); -webkit-animation-timing-function: ease-in; }
95% {-webkit-transform: rotateX(-88deg); -webkit-animation-timing-function: ease-in; }
100% { -webkit-transform: rotateX(-90deg); }
}
working onWebGL: Low-level dynamic 3D

SpiderGL Spherical Harmonics

(link requires a WebGL-enabled browser)

Pool game using WebGL implementation of O3D

(link requires a WebGL-enabled browser)

With WebGL you can navigate 3D environments, rotate around objects with volume, add realistic lighting, and render shadows and reflections like those above. Creating a scene like this just wouldn’t be possible in real-time with 3D CSS, let alone a 2D canvas or SVG. To achieve these effects, you need direct access to graphics hardware – which is exactly what WebGL provides.

With power comes complexity, so there is definitely a learning curve to using WebGL. The good news is that because it’s based on OpenGL ES 2.0, it should be familiar to people with graphics programming experience. A number of JavaScript libraries that make WebGL more accessible are already available, for example, the examples above use two frameworks: SpiderGL and the WebGL implementation of O3D. As the technology matures, expect to see other tools and libraries emerge to make it even easier to author content. A popular blog in the community, Learning WebGL has done a great job of keeping up with the latest libraries, tools and demos and has a substantial archive of WebGL resources.

Mozilla, Apple, Opera and Google are all working on putting the finishing touches on the WebGL spec in a Khronos working group, which is expected to hit v1.0 by the end of the year, but we’ve turned it on by default to get early feedback on Chromium’s implementation.