WebGL slips into Chrome, too, for 3D Web

When it comes to built-in support for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics, WebGL is being built into Firefox and the browser project behind Safari, and now Chrome is following suit.

"Preliminary WebGL support is now being compiled into Chrome," said Kenneth Russell a Wednesday message to a Chrome mailing list. But, he warned, WebGL itself is still under development and that new versions of the WebKit browser technology on which Chrome is based might cause incompatibilities for now.

WebGL can be used in the latest Chrome developer preview version--but only if "--enable-webgl" and "--no-sandbox" command-line switches are added when Chrome launches. The latest versions are Chrome 4.0.221.6 for Windows and 4.0.221.8 for Mac OS X and Linux.

WebGL began at Mozilla and Khronos Group, the organization that oversees the OpenGL 3D graphics interface. WebGL lets programmers creating Web sites issue commands for drawing 3D graphics, but the standard is still under development. The general idea is important for advanced Web sites and for Web-based applications, which although steadily getting more sophisticated don't yet match their analogs that run natively on computers.

Google supports WebGL but also is working on a separate, higher-level 3D interface for browsers called O3D.

[Hunnter2k3]

This is fantastic news!
The more access to all these things, the better.
It will all converge down the line at some point.

[pkasting]

Passing "--no-sandbox" is very dangerous, because it removes a critical piece of Google Chrome's security model and exposes users to any attack that exploits bugs in the renderer. It would be nice to put big warning signs around this flag in the article, so people don't simply add the flag to their shortcut and proceed merrily along.

[Shankland]

Sound advice from someone who knows--thanks for sharing it, Peter.

[forever4now]

A few advantages, that I can think of, for having HTML5, WebGL, O3D & Native Client built into Chrome, even at an early stage, are that:

1. it makes it easy for developers, to begin experimenting/prototyping with them (no searching/installing plugins, etc.).
2. it facilitates early developer feedback, accelerating the maturation period, for the technology.
3. if facilitates mashups, between the different technologies.
4. it unifies the Chrome build system & process, for all of the components.
5. it allows the technology to be integrated into development & debugging tools.
6. it allows curious users to view websites & demos of the technology.
7. it provides a reference platform, for other browser vendors to emulate.

[gpjt]

This is great news, but I've not been able to get it to work. I'm using Chrome v4.0.222.12, which is definitely a recent dev release, and I've put --enable-webgl --no-sandbox on the command line, but when my JavaScript code calls

canvas.getContext("webkit-3d")

or, just in case,

canvas.getContext("moz-webgl")

...I get nothing back from either. I tried just "3d" as well, to no avail. Has anyone else managed to get WebGL to work in Chrome?

[gpjt]

Ah -- looks like they've had to pull it from the build: http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/build/features_override.gypi?view=log#rev28707