Diego Cantor – WebGL Beginner’s Guide

If you’re a JavaScript developer who wants to take the plunge into 3D web development, this is the perfect primer. From a basic understanding of WebGL structure to creating realistic 3D scenes, everything you need is here.

About This Book

* Dive headfirst into 3D web application development using WebGL and JavaScript.
* Each chapter is loaded with code examples and exercises that allow the reader to quickly learn the various concepts associated with 3D web development
* The only software that the reader needs to run the examples is an HTML5 enabled modern web browser. No additional tools needed.
* A practical beginner’s guide with a fast paced but friendly and engaging approach towards 3D web development

Who This Book Is For

This book is written for JavaScript developers who are interested in 3D web development. A basic understanding of the DOM object model and the jQuery library is ideal but not required. No prior WebGL knowledge is expected.

What You Will Learn

* Understand the structure of a WebGL application
* Build and render 3D objects with WebGL
* Load complex models using JSON and AJAX
* Set up a lighting model using shaders, physics of light reflection, and lighting strategies
* Create a camera and use it to move around a 3D scene
* Use texturing, lighting and shading techniques to add greater realism to 3D scenes
* Implement selection of objects in a 3D scene with the mouse
* Advanced techniques to create more visually complex and compelling scenes

In Detail

WebGL is a new web technology that brings hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the browser without installing additional software. As WebGL is based on OpenGL and brings in a new concept of 3D graphics programming to web development, it may seem unfamiliar to even experienced Web developers.

Packed with many examples, this book shows how WebGL can be easy to learn despite its unfriendly appearance. Each chapter addresses one of the important aspects of 3D graphics programming and presents different alternatives for its implementation. The topics are always associated with exercises that will allow the reader to put the concepts to the test in an immediate manner.

WebGL Beginner’s Guide presents a clear road map to learning WebGL. Each chapter starts with a summary of the learning goals for the chapter, followed by a detailed description of each topic. The book offers example-rich, up-to-date introductions to a wide range of essential WebGL topics, including drawing, color, texture, transformations, framebuffers, light, surfaces, geometry, and more. With each chapter, you will “level up” your 3D graphics programming skills. This book will become your trustworthy companion filled with the information required to develop cool-looking 3D web applications with WebGL and JavaScript.

Authors

Diego Cantor

Diego Cantor is a software engineer with experience in government, education, finance, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and data warehouse (DWH) projects. He has also been appointed as instructor at the Faculty of Engineering at the Universidad de los Andes (Colombia) in the department of Systems Engineering. He did an internship at the CREATIS lab in Lyon, France. During that internship he implemented a component model based on the OSGi standards for medical imaging applications. After that, he did an internship at the Australian e-Health Research Centre in Brisbane, Australia, working on imaging analysis techniques and applying them to the study of Alzheimer’s disease. During his graduate studies, Diego worked on the processing of medical images (MRI) in 3D. This work led him to work with VTK and ITK and later on to research on technologies to improve state of the art medical imaging visualization and medical simulation systems. Currently he is a PhD student at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. There, he works on computational methods to correlate MRI to digital histology imaging. Diego speaks English, Spanish, and French.

Brandon Jones

Brandon Jones has been developing WebGL demos since the technology first began appearing in browsers in early 2010. He finds that it’s the perfect combination of two aspects of programming that he loves, allowing him to combine eight years of web development experience and a life-long passion for real-time graphics. Brandon currently works with cutting-edge HTML5 development at Motorola Mobility.   źródło opisu: www.packtpub.com źródło okładki: www.packtpub.com