WebGL is a new browser technology for directly accessing 3D graphics hardware from web pages. This technology is gaining support and is already included in many modern desktop browsers and on some mobile phones.

From 3DSOM Pro you can now export a webpage that displays your model in an interactive hardware-acclerated 3D viewer in the browser using webGL and HTML5.

Key features...

• Hardware accelerated viewing in the browser: WebGL allows web page scripts to directly interact with the graphics hardware. This allows complex models to be viewed interactively using the 3DSOM Pro webGL format on desktop machines running a modern browser.
• Compact compressed data: Our format uses binary compressed model data to minimise download times for large models. The viewer script itself is under 30Kb when zipped (the majority of web servers can be setup to serve ".js" files zip-compressed).
• Support for large meshes: The 3DSOM Pro webGL exporter automatically splits up large meshes that exceed the webGL triangle count limits allowing such meshes to be correctly displayed.
• Download and initialisation progress: The viewer repeatedly refreshes the initial progress screen avoiding non-responsive browser behaviour often associated with complex webGL demos.
• Full screen display: Models embedded as part of a web page can be exploded to use the whole browser window using our HTML template. Many web browsers have a full-screen mode (f11 key) so you can then use this capability for full-screen viewing.
• Support for mobiles and touch: Currently some mobile phone browsers (e.g. Firefox on Android) support webGL. The default HTML template detects the smaller mobile display and uses all the available screen space to view the 3D model. You may need to limit the texture map size and triangle count when targeting a mobile web browser.
• IE Support using Google Chrome Frame plugin: Many modern desktop browsers support webGL including Google Chrome and Firefox. However Internet Explorer does not currently support the webGL standard. Our HTML template is designed to detect IE and allow the user to quickly install the Chrome Frame plugin for IE with a single click. Once installed the page is rendered correctly using the plugin.
• Easy to use: Exporting with the format does not require an authoring environment or any JavaScript expertise. A fully usable web page can be published directly from 3DSOM Pro.