WebGL

Now browsers have audio. They have video. They even have WebGL and VR. And all those technologies work on mobile. The writing’s been on the wall for Flash for a while. Yet still, I’m sad to see it go. It was a brilliant crucible of creativity. A forge for many emerging artists in the field of creative coding, and many of the concepts from Flash and ActionScript were the proving grounds for their modern browser equivalents.

I’ll be looking back fondly on those years, rather than spitting on Flash’s grave. And as we see the last of the great browser plugins disappear* I hope you’ll join me in celebrating the creative culture that it nurtured.

*RealPlayer 4eva!

These are awesome and mesmerizing, even more so that they demonstrate what can be done with native browser WebGL APIs. Give them a try. (Warning: some may be quite laggy if you have lower end hardware, and I haven’t tested these on mobile.)

Ever wanted to paint realistic-looking brushstrokes in your browser? You’re welcome.

Stuff in Space is a realtime 3D map of objects in Earth orbit, visualized using WebGL.

The website updates daily with orbit data from Space-Track.org and uses the excellent satellite.js Javascript library to calculate satellite positions.

A WebGL 2 demo that’s fun to watch as the particles move around.

An interesting look at what’s possible with WebGL these days. The graphics aren’t as detailed as they could be, but I suspect that’s more to make it run smoothly on lower end hardware than a limitation of the technology. More information in the source link below.