Web3D Applications

Step-up solution for bringing your CAD products to a website

Component of industrial technology for 3D-Web

Ibn Al-Haytham learns how to develop industrial software components for creating powerful and modern Hybrid data applications (CAD together with Point Clouds) running in the web.

Core ideas were elaborated bearing in mind end-user needs, strong performance constraints and an aim to fit both big server-based CAD software and small client-side CAD applications.

An important requirement was to reach reusability plus modularity so that any valuable contribution made in scope of derived applications (CAD Server, Andy3D, etc.) becomes integrated into the core technology.

Web3D Viewer package is a subset of these components for viewing and interacting with CAD product data. It does not include any server backend and is explicitly focused on CAD viewer needs.

Web3D Platform

Web3D Viewer is a package of software components for bringing CAD presentations to the web. It provides essential viewing and interactivity capabilities for short-time creating of 3D-rich web applications.

Web3D Features

In Ibn Al-Haytham, we believe in the industrial future of customized 3D Web applications and wish to present you an example of how 3D models can be visualized in a browser that supports WebGL, Three.js and HTML5 technologies.

We are excited to start cooperating with one of our clients on its future industrial 3D web application that will optimize its operational maintenance costs via an intelligent web-based 3D solution.

WebGL

WebGL (Web Graphics Library) is a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 2D and 3D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-ins. WebGL is fully integrated with other web standards, 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 written in OpenGL ES Shading Language (ESSL), a language similar to C or C++, and is executed on a computer's graphics processing unit (GPU). WebGL is designed and maintained by the non-profit Khronos Group.

Three.js

Three.js is a cross-browser JavaScript 3D library and Application Programming Interface (API) used to create and display animated 3D computer graphics in a web browser. Three.js uses WebGL. The source code is hosted in a repository on GitHub.

Features

Three.js includes the following features:

  • Effects: Anaglyph, cross-eyed and parallax barrier
  • Scenes: add and remove objects at run-time; fog
  • Cameras: perspective and orthographic; controllers: trackball, FPS, path and more
  • Animation: armatures, forward kinematics, inverse kinematics, morph, and keyframe
  • Lights: ambient, direction, point and spot lights; shadows: cast and receive
  • Materials: Lambert, Phong, smooth shading, textures and more
  • Shaders: access to full OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL) capabilities: lens flare, depth pass and extensive post-processing library
  • Objects: meshes, particles, sprites, lines, ribbons, bones and more - all with Level of detail
  • Geometry: plane, cube, cylinder, sphere, torus, 3D text and more; modifiers: lathe, extrude and tube
  • Data loaders: binary, image, JSON and scene
  • Utilities: full set of time and 3D math functions including frustum, matrix, quaternion, UVs and more
  • Export and import: utilities to create Three.js-compatible JSON files from within: Blender, openCTM, FBX, 3ds Max, and OBJ
  • Support: API documentation is under construction, public forum and wiki in full operation