Webware

3D graphics became ordinary first in games, then in operating systems, and on Thursday, it took a significant step toward being built into Web browsers as well.

The Khronos Group, which oversees the OpenGL graphics interface, announced that its work with Mozilla to bring hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the Web has reached draft standard form. The standard, called WebGL, lets programmers who use the Web's JavaScript language take advantage of the fact that video cards can handle 3D graphics with aplomb.

The group now wants commentary from Web developers and others who might be involved with WebGL so it can be finalized. "I anticipate us moving toward a spec that is not provisional, not merely a draft, in early 2010, the first quarter," said Arun Ranganathan, chairman of the WebGL working group and standards evangelist at Mozilla.

Internet Explorer remains the dominant browser in terms of usage, but all four of its main challengers--Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari, Google's Chrome, and Opera Software's Opera--are working hard, sometimes in an informal alliance, to get ahead by advancing the Web state of the art.

WebGL fits into that effort, and not just academically. All four of those browser makers have endorsed WebGL, and developer test versions of Firefox, Safari, and Chrome have it built in. Microsoft declined to comment for this story beyond reiterating its general support for standards.

Ultimately, building 3D support into the Web could advance user interfaces of Web applications--including games, the popularity of which can be a powerful incentive for upgrading to the latest technology.

It's not clear exactly how it will play out, though, Ranganathan said. The arrival of Canvas, an advanced 2D interface for browsers, has led to a blossoming of graphics work, and he expects a similar change with 3D graphics.

But don't hold your breath for Web-based first-person shooters that rival native applications. First, even if 3D is accelerated, there are plenty of other processing and user interface constraints on Web applications. Second, even after WebGL is standardized, it must be built into browsers, people must upgrade to those new versions, and programmers must learn how to support the technology.

WebGL isn't the only 3D Web work under way. Google has its own O3D project, which currently is a browser plug-in but that the company also is building directly into Chrome.

O3D is a higher-level interface, though, not a direct competitor. Details are technical, but O3D uses a retained mode approach to WebGL's immediate mode interfaces.

And of course, a decade ago there was VRML--virtual reality modeling language, a file format rather than interface. A VRML successor called X3D, though, can actually make use of WebGL, and indeed a project called X3dom aims to do just that.

Navteq announced a partnership Monday under which it will supply 3D map data for Microsoft's newly expanded mapping online services.

Last week, Microsoft took its first steps building 3D imagery into Bing Maps with data from about 100 cities to start with in the Streetside feature that gives a driver's-eye view of the world. But slogging down innumerable streets the world over is an arduous process--Google has been doing it for years with Street View and still has a ways to go to add its first data, not to mention the challenge of keeping views up to date.

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.

A nascent technology called WebGL for bringing hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the Web is getting a lot closer to reality.

Last week, programmers began building WebGL into Firefox's nightly builds, the developer versions used to test the latest updates to the open-source browser. Also this month, programmers began building WebGL into WebKit, the project that's used in both Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome.

Wolfire Games picked up on the WebKit move and offered a video of WebGL in action.

Overall, the moves stand to accelerate the pace of WebGL development by making it easier to try out. But the technology still has a ways to go before people will be able to play Web-based versions of a 3D software such as first-person shooter video games or Google Earth.

"All of these implementations are going to have some interoperability issues for the next little while, as the spec is still in flux and we're tracking it at different rates, but will hopefully start to stabilize over the next few months," said Vladimir Vukicevic in a blog post.

WebGL is one of a several efforts under way to make Web browsers into a more powerful computing platform, increasingly capable of rivaling what software running natively on a computer can do. Even the company with the most to lose from that direction--Microsoft--is embracing it with a Web-based version of Office.

The WebGL plan emerged in March from Mozilla and the Khronos Group, which oversees the venerable OpenGL standard to let software tap into a computer's hardware-based graphics power . WebGL's roots lie with an earlier Mozilla project called Canvas 3D, a cousin of the present two-dimensional Canvas technology for drawing graphics in Web pages.

Although Google is a WebGL supporter, it's also developing a higher-level 3D graphics technology called O3D for browsers. Google is working on building O3D into Chrome, but the fruits of that labor aren't yet available.

WebGL has a ways to go, as well, but developers eager to give it a whirl should probably start thinking seriously about it.

"The WebGL working group is targeting the first half of 2010 for release of the standard, but implementations will show up before that," said WebGL programmer Mark Steele in August.

Those wanting to try it not only have to download the Firefox nightly build, but also have to specifically enable WebGL through the Firefox "about:config" mechanism. Vukicevic has instructions on his blog.

Departing significantly from what other browsers offer, Google has begun building its O3D plug-in for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics into its Chrome browser.

"The O3D team is working on getting O3D integrated into the Chromium build, and we're close to being able to complete our first step towards integration," said programmer Greg Spencer in a mailing list announcement Wednesday about Chromium, the open-source project that underlies Chrome itself. "I'll be making the Windows build of Chromium be dependent upon building O3D as part of the build process."

By helping to pave the way for high-powered Web-based games, the move furthers Google's ambition to speed the transformation of the Web from a static medium into a foundation for applications. Another piece of the work is Google Native Client, which is designed to let Web applications take advantage of a computer's native processing power.

Click to view sample video of YouTube in 3D

(Credit: YouTube)

A Google employee has a working prototype of what 3D videos would look like on YouTube.

"YouTubePete" said in a YouTube forum thread that he's the developer working on making a stereoscopic player during his "20 percent time" at Google.

The sample video, which was dug up by SearchEngineRoundtable.com, can be found here. I happened to have a pair of amber/blue glasses lying around, and when I finally found the correct mode in the drop down menu to the bottom right of the player, I did indeed see 3D. It was grainy and dark, but it worked.

Pete reiterates that it is just a side project and doesn't seem to be on the agenda for the company. But he is taking feedback if you have suggestions.

Satisfied that its security underpinnings are solid, Google has promoted its open-source Native Client technology to accelerate Web applications out of its research phase and is taking steps to build it into the Chrome Web browser.

"Based on our experience to date, we believe that the basic architecture of our system is sound and the implementation is supportable. So now we are undertaking a number of tasks to transition Native Client from a research technology to a development platform," said Brad Chen, Google's Native Client engineering manager, in a mailing list announcement Wednesday.

Brad Chen, engineering manager of the Google Native Client

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Native Client, called NaCl for short, is a mechanism to run software downloaded over the Web directly on x86 processors such as Intel's Core line. The key motivation is to attain the speed of regular "native" software installed on a computer rather than the much slower JavaScript environment that sophisticated Web sites use today. It's one part of Google's broad effort to evolve the Web from a collection of relatively static sites into foundation for more powerful applications.

Executing native code from the Web is easy--until you start trying to worry about security risks. To this end, Native Client examines software before it runs to block software that takes a variety of prohibited actions, an idea called static analysis, and it runs the software in a protected sandbox.

"We recognized the underlying technology to be ambitious and risky, and felt strongly than a generous measure of public scrutiny was appropriate before we committed to any definite plans," Chen said. Satisfied that Native Client passed muster, Google will remove various security constraints such as the inability to execute Native Client software downloaded from the open Internet, he said.

Native Client was first introduced in December a browser plug-in, but Google doesn't like that approach.

"We recognize that there is well-justified resistance to installing browser plug-ins. For this reason we have a strong preference for delivering Native Client pre-installed or built into the browser, and we'll be focusing on that as our main strategy for delivering Native Client to users," Chen said.

And now we see one reason why Google is interested having a browser of its own available: "Careful readers may have already noticed evidence of integration into Chromium in the Native Client source," Chen said, referring to the open-source project that underlies the Chrome browser.

Google touted Native Client at its Google I/O conference in May, showing off a Web-based photo editor as an example of the processing power the technology offers. Google also is trying to pair Native Client with another company project, O3D, which lets browsers take advantage of hardware to accelerate 3D graphics.

Brad Chen, engineering manager of the Google Native Client

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO--Google wants its Native Client technology to be a little more native.

Google Native Client, still highly experimental, lets browsers run program modules natively on an x86 processor for higher performance than with Web programming technologies such as JavaScript or Flash that involve more software layers to process and execute the code. But to use it, there's a significant barrier: people must install a browser plug-in.

However, Google wants to make the technology more broadly accessible in browsers through new technology coming to HTML, the standard used to build Web pages, and at the Google I/O developer conference Thursday demonstrated its work to make that happen.

Specifically, David Sehr, a tech lead for Native Client, showed off Web Workers standard to let Web pages assign different tasks to independent processing "threads," effectively letting a browser walk and chew gum at the same time rather than waiting for one chore to be finished before the next begins. Web workers are one element of the ambitious but still not finalized HTML 5 standard.

Why care? Because today your browser runs software excruciatingly slowly compared to native applications that run on your computer, but Google wants to speed them up tremendously, a move that would add a lot of muscle to its ambition to make Web-based software more competitive.

"We want to be within single-digit percentages of what you can do with the best desktop native code," said Brad Chen, engineering manager of the Google Native Client (NaCl) project in a talk at Google I/O.

Examples of what can be done include decoding video, encrypting data, video game physics engines, and face recognition. More interesting, perhaps, is when Native Client can work in conjunction with another Google browser plug-in, O3D, that lets browsers take advantage of hardware to accelerate 3D graphics.

Google demonstrated a browser-based image editor built with Google Native Client.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

"With O3D, we think we'll be able to enable high-quality games, the kind you're accustomed to seeing on consoles, as well as CAD applications," Chen said.

Although Google is working hard to enable more powerful Web applications, it's not all altruistic. The company has a growing stable of applications including Google Docs, Google Maps, and Gmail that can become much more competitive with desktop technology such as Microsoft Office. For now, though, Google is trying to hammer out Native Client security issues before promoting it more widely among programmers, much less mainstream users.

Sehr said Google's browser, Chrome, will introduce Web Worker support, he hoped within the next couple weeks. Google has been touting HTML 5 features at Google I/O, and Chrome gives Google a way to advance the state of Web application art.

Though other browsers are building in Web worker support, too, for now the technology is rough and certainly not a foundation a Web programmer could expect widespread support for among browsers.

Google plans to support Native Client both through Web Workers and the plug-in, Chen said in an interview. Built-in support in the browser is helpful, but Chen said Web Workers have undesirable limitations for many chores. For example, the plug-in is necessary for applications that require a fast response to user input, he said.

One such example Google showed at the conference was a photo editor. With it, images could be rotated, zoomed, and have colors and tones adjusted with a variety of sliders. There are online photo editors available today, but they typically use Adobe Systems' Flash plug-in.

This fractal graphics demo showed off a forthcoming Chrome ability to access Native Client applications through the HTML 5 Web Worker standard.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Even at the cutting edge of cloud computing, Web-based applications can be frustrating to write and to use.

Spreadsheets can't sort data well, there are lags between mouse clicks and the program's response, graphics look Mickey Mouse rather than lavish. But Google, among the most aggressive cloud computing advocates, is trying to address some of those shortcomings.

The company has released experimental but still very much real software that brings in some of the power of the PC, where people often use Web applications. Google Native Client--first released in 2008 but updated with a new version Thursday--is a browser plug-in for securely running computationally intense software downloaded from a Web site. And on Tuesday, Google released O3D, a plug-in that lets Web-based applications tap into a computer's graphics chip, too.

The projects are rough around the edges, to say the least. Native Client--NaCl for short--is more security research project than usable programming foundation right now, and O3D exists in part to try to accelerate the arrival of some future, not necessarily compatible, standard for building 3D abilities into Web applications.

Google Native Client is shown here running a fractal landscape explorer.

(Credit: Google)

But both fundamentally challenge the idea that Web apps necessarily are stripped-down, feeble counterparts to the software that runs natively on a personal computer, and they come from a company that has engineering skill, a yen for moving activity to the Internet, and search-ad profits that can fund projects that don't immediately or directly make money.

"There are things you can do in desktop apps that you can't do in Web apps. We're working very hard to close that gap, so anything you can do in a desktop application you can do safely and securely from a Web application," said Linus Upson, a Google engineering director.