Browser makers announce support for built-in 3D graphics

August 4, 2009 | Paul Boutin | Comments | |

img_30331_gta4mod_450x360

At today’s sessions of the SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference in New Orleans, a group of hardware and software makers that includes browser makers Mozilla, Opera and Google announced their plans to deliver built-in 3D graphics in Web pages that won’t require a plug-in or add-on to the browser. Early adopters may get to try it in a few months. The rest of us will probably see it arrive on our screens the second half of next year.

WebGL, as the new technology is known, is easily described as a browser-based version of OpenGL, the Open Graphics Library specification developed by Silicon Graphics in 1992. You can run OpenGL in a browser today using a plug-in from Unity Technologies, but native support from the big browser makers will eventually put this technology in front of a much larger, less technical audience.

OpenGL is currently used for video games and for the slick Mac OS X interface. Your Windows PC already knows what to do with it. WebGL will extend OpenGL by allowing websites and Web-based services to access and control OpenGL through Javascript, the programming language that can be built into Web pages.

A press release from Khronos, the industry consortium that will oversee the WebGL spec, includes AMD, NVidia and Ericsson as companies committed to making WebGL available on their PC chips and mobile phones.

A better way to look at this list is: Who’s missing?

  • Microsoft, maker of Internet Explorer
  • Apple, maker of the Safari browser used by Macs and iPhones
  • Intel, whose CPU chips will need to work with NVidia’s graphics chips that render the OpenGL graphics. Maybe they don’t need to do anything to support WebGL, but their name would add a lot of clout to this announcement.

Microsoft’s support will be crucial, because of its large user base for Internet Explorer. The company has its own technology, DirectX, that competes with OpenGL. So it’s possible it’ll decide not to build OpenGL into its browser.

At this point, though, it’s early enough in the game that Mozilla, Google and Opera’s promises to put it in their browsers is sufficient to make WebGL feel like something that’s going to really happen.

Next Story: Electronic Arts beats earnings estimates, posts smaller loss as it launches bigger titles
Previous Story: Berkeley Ventures kicks off with four new startups

Bookmark and Share

Tags: , ,

Photo of Paul Boutin

About the Author, Paul Boutin

Paul (paul@venturebeat.com) covers Apple & the iPhone, social networks & social media, digital music & video, and any crazy Internet story. Paul wrote and edited for Valleywag from 2006-2008, after several years with Wired magazine and Slate. He writes regularly for The New York Times' technology section and sometimes for Wired and The Wall Street Journal. He studied computer science at MIT in the early 1980s, and worked as a software developer and network administrator for 15 years before becoming a professional writer. Follow him on Twitter at @paulboutin, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • zato
    "A better way to look at this list is: Who’s missing?"
    "• Apple, maker of the Safari browser used by Macs and iPhones"

    Sure Paul, Apple has no interest in WebGL or OpenGL.
  • anon23123
    Don't worry about Intel.
    Anything that causes people to buy hardware, Intel will get behind. That includes their graphics chips, and any applications which are typically aided by a faster cpu.
    Heck, Intel was trying to push this 10 years ago with Microsoft Chrome/Chrome Effects and their partnership with Macromedia 3D.
  • OpenGL based 3D is already in the browser with Javascript access. But nobody cares because what you really need is a content pipeline supported by industry tools. Look at SVG support in IE for the future of WebGL. And SVG is supported 100% by Adobe.

    Click on "Effects3D" for OpenGL 3D. Warning: hangs on PPC/OS X.
    http://app.teppefall.com/installer
  • TedHoward
    If you think people are annoyed at browser compatibility testing, just wait until they see what it takes to support 80% of the video card and driver combinations available. As a hint, drivers consistently lie about the capabilities of the hardware so you need a database of correct capabilities for each card+driver combo.
    As Jan Erik says, there is a *massive* investment in content pipeline needed to handle much 3D graphics. Look at how much effort the XNA Game Studio team has gone through to try to get it right, and then go look at all the bugs and complaints about that pipeline. Every hear the promises of Collada from about 2005? 3D content is not easy. I'm looking at Restaurant City with mismatched mesh and animation definitions right now, in fact.
    Everyone remembers that the biggest source of blue screens was video drivers, right? The only times I've had BSOD's was hardware failures, me messing with hardware, and 3D API's.

    I worked at WildTangent. I worked at Microsoft Game Studios. I work at Playdom now. Web people don't understand the challenges of 3D production. They are entranced by the dream of how cool 3D can be, but they don't know what they're getting into.

    ps I'd be happy to be wrong and hear that we've entered a utopia of 3D content on the web.
  • ricardobeat
    It's likely that all access to WebGL will be done through an API that abstracts all of this you're talking about...
  • TedHoward
    Yes, exactly like DirectX and OpenGL have done for many years. Everything I said still applies.
  • As O3D and others demonstrated, these are not developers related problems. Moreover, OpenGL is already abstracted enough. If a library supports it, it is about features detection for special FX ( or logic, sometimes ) as is for DirectX backward compatibility. You should be enthusiastic about this announcement 'cause your experience and your career will automatically do an extra step ... what you do instead? You blame Web people as they have no idea about 3D features or problem solving? JavaScript itself is a mess about compatibility and you are complaining about a standard API?
  • TedHoward
    I never said that people who know how to build web services can't solve problems. I never complained about standards.
    There is no silver bullet for 3D. DirectX and OpenGL do *not* solve compat issues; the fact that you think they do is a proof poiint for my statement about people not understanding how hard 3D is. VRML, WildTangent, Unity, O3D, .... the dream of easy 3D has been alive for over a decade. "3D on the web" is a path littered with the corpses of past attempts.

    Again: "ps I'd be happy to be wrong and hear that we've entered a utopia of 3D content on the web."
  • elle p.
    What ever happened to VRML? 3DML? X3D? O3D?
  • Rob
    You will never see this on Internet Explorer but IE doesn't matter anymore. The other browsers are taking market share and IE usage is dropping like a rock, if for no other reason than web technology is moving forward and Microsoft isn't keeping up.

    In October, when Windows 7 will make IE just one choice in a group of browsers, that should be the tipping point to kill off that antique.
  • nulled
    @Rob - Exactly so, my friend.

    The combination of Firefox, Opera and Chrome alone will be enough to push this to the masses. IE (and MS ingeneral ) have ALWAYS tried to make their browser as incompatible as possible, because MS knew when Netscape was trying to built their own platform (along with Java, cross platform code) would threaten Microsoft Windows market share..

    So, what did MS do? They crushed Netscape by making IE free.

    But, now things have changed. This new WebGL based on an OPEN Standard (smells kinda like Open Source and Linux to me ) is being supported by Mozilla (multi-millions), Opera (a top browser innovator), and the leader of them all. GOOGLE (with 16 BILLION dollars just sitting around waiting to be spent )...

    Is there any suprise that this announcement is right after the announcement of Google OS?

    Google needs more than just HTML to become a competitor with MS. It needs APIs and access to the hardware, to allow browsers to become so powerful that the Operating System is irrelavant.

    I personally think this is Microsoft's fault for trying to infiltrate Google, by annoucning BING and making deals with yahoo!. Google Co-Founder HIMSELF is heading up the response to this...as he sees this as a direct challenge to Googles business.

    I think what has resulted is Google saying, "OK, Microsoft, you want to mess with Google and try this BING? Well now we are going to release Google OS."

    The amazing this about all this... is that Google is not trying to do it all on their own. They KNOW they need their own (directx) aka WebGL/OpenGL so that Software devs can make games. If you can make a game in a Browser, that runs equally well as todays Direct X games... then that means ANY type of software program is possible. ANY type...

    Think about it...

    All of this is lead by Google, which partnered with Mozilla ( the top browser, which Google happens to be their main revenue stream ) and a top Graphics Lib company to provide them with the 'missing link' to the whole (by pass the platform, aka, Windows) problem.

    That missing link is 3d Acceleration to make games run in the browser, hense, ANY Appication is then possible. REGARDLESS of the underlying Operating System.

    It is only now, after so many failures with OpenGL and other technical problems that another poster has mentioned, that they can LEARN FROM...and make it actually happen! 3D games in a browser = cross platform!!!

    It all, almost sounds like a big conspiracy, but it all makes sense to me. One thing leads to another... and Google wants to spend some of that 16 B they got in the bank!

    Unlike MS, Google actually WORKS with standards and other companies, and does not try to 'winner take all' like MS does... so good for them. About time.