Three-dimensional scenes in web browsers with Three.js

Perspective in 3D

Author(s): Johannes Raida and Carsten Zerbst

HTML5 brings 3D support to browsers. Thanks to WebGL, Firefox, Chrome, and company, you can render three-dimensional worlds without special plugins or viewers, and the Three.js JavaScript library makes programming easy.

Beyond the buzzword “HTML5,” a whole bundle of new technologies has found entry into browsers on desktop and mobile devices. Among them is one that opens the door to the 3D world: WebGL. The Web Graphics Library is a JavaScript interface for the OpenGL 3D library. With it, normal HTML pages can include three-dimensional content that runs on the graphics card with hardware acceleration.

WebGL has been implemented in Mozilla Firefox (from version 4), Opera (from version 12), and Google Chrome (from version 9) desktop browsers. Because the Khronos Group used OpenGL for Embedded Systems (OpenGL ES) as the foundation, it also can be used under Android with Firefox for mobile devices and Opera Mobile.