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I've been playing with WebGL via the THREE.js[1] library and I'm really gobsmacked. It's relatively easy, and a lot of fun to play with. I've noticed that a lo

by DanI-S 14y ago

I've been playing with WebGL via the THREE.js[1] library and I'm really gobsmacked. It's relatively easy, and a lot of fun to play with. I've noticed that a lot of the demos people have created so far are rendering a simple scene, or trying to build a game engine. I'm looking forward to more people building user interfaces that make use of 3D for data visualization and user interaction. 3D has literally never been so accessible. [1] https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/ https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/

darien 14y ago
The 3D Globe WebGL library created by google is an awesome example of data visualization. With the blessing of the reddit folks, I populated some Google Analytics data into it. http://www.webgl.com/2012/03/webgl-globe-visualization-reddit-traffic-for-3rd-neil-degrasse-tyson-ama/ http://www.webgl.com/2012/03/webgl-globe-visualization-reddi...
- DanI-S 14y ago
  That's very impressive, and I'm going to be playing with that globe this evening :)
- talmand 14y ago
  Another aspect that makes WebGL projects like this even more useful is that you can right-click and save what you are currently seeing as an image.
  - emddudley 14y ago
    I love that as well.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
    Do all browsers support that?
    - talmand 14y ago
      You made me curious, so I tried it. I could only get the option in Firefox, of which I'm running Aurora. IE, Safari, and Opera wouldn't load WebGL, I'm just running whatever the current mainstream version happens to be. Chrome, again current mainstream version, loads the WebGL but no save image option.
xxbondsxx 14y ago
Three.js is great, but sometimes the performance isn't quite there for large sets of data. When I made this 3D Facebook connection plotter: http://petercottle.com/friendMapper2/ http://petercottle.com/friendMapper2/ I had to switch to barebones WebGL with GPU picking to get the right performance. It would be interesting if someone made a pure data-vis library for WebGL. Like d3.js + a webgl plotter

by DanI-S 14y ago

darien 14y ago

The 3D Globe WebGL library created by google is an awesome example of data visualization. With the blessing of the reddit folks, I populated some Google Analytics data into it. http://www.webgl.com/2012/03/webgl-globe-visualization-reddit-traffic-for-3rd-neil-degrasse-tyson-ama/ http://www.webgl.com/2012/03/webgl-globe-visualization-reddi...

DanI-S 14y ago
That's very impressive, and I'm going to be playing with that globe this evening :)
talmand 14y ago
Another aspect that makes WebGL projects like this even more useful is that you can right-click and save what you are currently seeing as an image.
- emddudley 14y ago
  I love that as well.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  Do all browsers support that?
  - talmand 14y ago
    You made me curious, so I tried it. I could only get the option in Firefox, of which I'm running Aurora. IE, Safari, and Opera wouldn't load WebGL, I'm just running whatever the current mainstream version happens to be. Chrome, again current mainstream version, loads the WebGL but no save image option.

xxbondsxx 14y ago

Three.js is great, but sometimes the performance isn't quite there for large sets of data. When I made this 3D Facebook connection plotter: http://petercottle.com/friendMapper2/ http://petercottle.com/friendMapper2/ I had to switch to barebones WebGL with GPU picking to get the right performance. It would be interesting if someone made a pure data-vis library for WebGL. Like d3.js + a webgl plotter