Hardware-Accelerated 3D Graphics Coming to a Browser Near You in 2010

The proposed HTML 5 standard is far from being a done deal but new features are already being added to the list. One of the most exciting ones is 3D hardware acceleration allowing web pages to have native 3D graphics capabilities independent of any proprietary implementation. Industry consortium Khronos Group showcased some of the advances in that direction at the SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference in New Orleans and revealed more details on their WebGL project.

Current web standards have been with us, in some cases virtually unchanged, for a couple of decades so it's no surprise that they are feeling the strain. While the web today may not look much like the one ten years ago, the underlying technology hasn't changed much. However, some relatively new projects aim at upgrading the web, in particular the proposed HTML 5 standard, by bringing some much needed advanced capabilities to web pages, with one of the more spectacular ones being hardware supported 3D graphics.

One of the biggest moves in this direction is WebGL, a technology backed by major players in the hardware and IT markets as well as several browser makers. The Khronos Group consortium is made up of hardware heavyweights AMD and Nvidia, industry giants like Google and Apple and browser makers like Mozilla and Opera Software.

The technology isn't expected to see a wide release until at least the second half of next year but significant progress is already being made in the area. WebGL aims at providing a standard interface, using JavaScript, for browsers and web pages to access the OpenGL hardware acceleration capabilities of the vast majority of graphics cards today and a growing number of mobile devices. The technology will make use of the <canvas> HTML 5 element to render the image inside the page, while also taking advantage of the great advances in JavaScript performance in most browsers.

“The Web has already seen the wide proliferation of compelling 2D graphical applications, and we think 3D is the next step for Firefox. We look forward to a new class of 3D-enriched Web applications within Canvas, and for creative synergy between OpenGL developers and Web developers,” said Arun Ranganathan of Mozilla and chair of the WebGL working group.

“Google is committed to open web standards and is very excited to be part of the WebGL initiative,” said Matt Papakipos, engineering director at Google. “We believe that WebGL is an important step toward making high-performance 3D possible in the browser.”