WebGL to offer 3D rendering engine for browsers

The Khronos Group has unveiled some details about the upcoming WebGL 3D acceleration standard, this new royalty-free technology is turning into a nice 3D rendering engine which can operate entirely within the browser. It could lead to better web games and impressive web site interfaces. The WebGL specification is expected to be released in the first half of 2010, with support in both Firefox and Chrome expected.

The general principle behind WebGL is to offer a JavaScript binding to the group's OpenGL ES 2.0 system, allowing code run within the browser to access the graphics hardware directly in the same way as a standalone application can. As the technology would rely solely on JavaScript to do the heavy lifting, no browser plugin would be required - and it would be compatible with any browser which supports the scripting language alongside the HTML 5 'Canvas' element.

While there are obvious applications for the technology in web-based gaming, the system offers more than that: a high-quality, fast 3D rendering engine which can operate entirely within the browser could lead to far more impressive interfaces to websites, for instance - and possibly even threaten Adobe's Flash technology as the de facto "make my site pretty" standard.