WebGL: Up and Running
Tony Parisi
(O’Reilly, paperback – Kindle)
“WebGL,” Tony Parisi notes, “brings 3D to the browser, providing a JavaScript interface to the graphics hardware on your machine.”
Parisi is co-creator of the VRML and X3D languages which have become ISO standards for networked 3D graphics. So he knows a bit about using WebGL (Web Graphics Library) for low-level 3D renderings on the Web. If you are ready to give Web 3D graphics a try, you need WebGL: Up and Running.
Parisi’s new book is a well-written “quick introduction” to 3D programming. It has 211 pages and numerous code examples and screen shots. And it is organized into eight chapters and an appendix that provides links to several WebGL resources.
The first two chapters offer an overview of the WebGL API and Three.js, the open source JavaScript library that is used in the programming examples.
Chapters 3 through 6 focus on “the details of programming graphics, animation, and interaction” and explore “WebGL’s breakthrough capabilities for integrating 2D and 3D into a seamless user experience.”
Chapters 7 and 8 look at “real-world WebGL production topics, from authoring tools and file formats to building robust and secure WebGL applications.” Also in`Chapter 8, Parisi shows how to build a full WegGL application, a racing game.
You will need some familiarity with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery and Ajax to use this book. But you won’t need prior 3D graphics experience. The author’s goal is to get you up and running well enough that you can start using WebGL and learning as you go.
Still, “even the 3D graphics expert will learn something new” from this how-to guide, promises Ken Russell, the Khronos Group’s WebGL Working Group chair, in the Foreword to WebGL: Up and Running.
— Si Dunn
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