WebGL brings GPU acceleration to the browser using a dedicated language (GLSL). Primarily intended for 2D and 3D graphics, WebGL is part of the web standard, so no plug-ins or downloads are required allowing the user to immediately view content with no additional steps to cause friction.
Graphics can be static, animated or interactive. Use cases range from simple decoration through data visualisation to product visualisation and configuration.
Since WebGL is rendered using the <canvas> tag, WebGL elements can be mixed freely with HTML content and styled with CSS.
WebGL is supported by most major browsers and devices (see caniuse).
The Khronos Consortium is responsible for the WebGL standard… amongst others.
OpenGL ES 2.0 for the Web
WebGL is a cross-platform, royalty-free web standard for a low-level 3D graphics API based on OpenGL ES 2.0, exposed through the HTML5 Canvas element as Document Object Model interfaces. Developers familiar with OpenGL ES 2.0 will recognize WebGL as a Shader-based API using GLSL, with constructs that are semantically similar to those of the underlying OpenGL ES 2.0 API. It stays very close to the OpenGL ES 2.0 specification, with some concessions made for what developers expect out of memory-managed languages such as JavaScript.
WebGL brings plugin-free 3D to the web, implemented right into the browser. Major browser vendors Apple (Safari), Google (Chrome), Mozilla (Firefox), and Opera (Opera) are members of the WebGL Working Group.
- WebGL 1.0 Specification
- WebGL Public Wiki
- WebGL Public Mailing List (spec discussion) and Public Mailing List Archives
- WebGL Reference Card
- Google Groups and StackOverflow discussions on developing with WebGL
- Filing bugs about the WebGL spec or conformance tests
- WebGL Security white paper
WebGL (Web Graphics Library) is a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 3D and 2D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-ins. WebGL does so by introducing an API that closely conforms to OpenGL ES 2.0 that can be used in HTML5 Firefox 4+, Google Chrome 9+, Opera 12+, Safari 5.1+ and Internet Explorer 11+; however, the user’s device must also have hardware that supports these features.
WebGL (Web Graphics Library) is a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 3D computer graphics and 2D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-ins. WebGL is integrated completely into all the web standards of the browser allowing GPU accelerated usage of physics and image processing and effects as part of the web page canvas. WebGL elements can be mixed with other HTML elements and composited with other parts of the page or page background. WebGL programs consist of control code written in JavaScript and shader code that is executed on a computer’s Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). WebGL is designed and maintained by the non-profit Khronos Group.