1. Introduction to WebGL
1.1 Overview
WebGL (full-written Web Graphics Library) is a 3D drawing standard. This drawing technology standard allows the combination of JavaScript and OpenGL ES 2.0. By adding a JavaScript binding of OpenGL ES 2.0, WebGL can provide hardware 3D accelerated rendering for HTML5 Canvas, so that Web developers can use the system graphics card to display 3D scenes and models more smoothly in the browser, and create complex navigation and data visualization. Obviously, the WebGL technical standard eliminates the trouble of developing a dedicated rendering plug-in for web pages, and can be used to create website pages with complex 3D structures, and even to design 3D web games and so on.
Compared with traditional 3D solutions, WebGL has the following advantages:
- WebGL is embedded in the browser and can be used directly without installing plug-ins and libraries
- Can run WebGL programs on multiple platforms
- Make the 3D visualization of massive data possible
- The development environment is simple, only a text editor and a browser can be used to write 3D graphics programs
- More
1.2 WebGL and OpenGL
OpenGL is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. It is one of the two most widely used 3D graphics rendering technologies on personal computers, the other being Direct3D. In a sense, WebGL is "OpenGL for the Web".
OpenGL ES is a lightweight OpenGL framework after removing many obsolete and useless features from OpenGL. While remaining lightweight, OpenGL ES still has enough ability to render exquisite 3D graphics.
The technical specification of WebGL is inherited from OpenGL ES, starting from version 2.0ÿ