Sunday 27 July 2014

I.MX6 Developing with WebGL

On the new features in BSP 3.10.17 was support for WebGL. In a nutshell WebGL is javascript API supporting 3D and 2D graphics rendering, more about WebGL can be found here. WebGL is based on Open GL ES 2.0.

WebGL support opens up the possibility of developing and running graphical web based application on the i.mx6 within a browser. Furthermore there's also the possibility of the deploying a LAMP stack to serve the application from the i.mx6.  This opens up the possibility of developing simple games, kiosk applications, interaction user manuals/instructions and signage displays, etc..

To give you a taste of what is possible with the current WebGL implementation, I've put together a number of short videos that run existing WebGL demos/applications. These were run on lightweight Debian rootfs with Chromium browser (under X) on an i.mx6q board as part of a prototyping exercise. Chromium has been tweaked to maximize performance and the screen resolution was 720p (1280x720. Beware that not all WebGL application will run, some will fail because the Vivante libraries currently lack the 'Float Textures' extensions, others because the GPU is not powerful enough to give a decent FPS rate. Apologies for the quality of the videos. I'd advise that a i.mx6 quad processor is used to run WebGL as the examples consume 25-35% CPU under load.

The first video which also sums up what can be done on the i.mx6 with WebGL is the 'Lego build Chrome' demo. This application allows the creation of a Lego structure.





three.js is a javascript library which makes WebGL easier, here are some WebGL/CSS 3D examples which play nicely.




babylon.js is a 3D engine based on WebGL and javascript. The 'Create Your Own Shader' demo allows online editing of shaders.



CopperCube is an editor for creating 3D application, this is the 'Backyard Demo'.



Finally the "undulating-monkey" from aerotwist.



1 comment:

  1. Would you care sharing some info on how to compile chromium for udoo with webgl support. Gyp, exports, toolchain used chromium version etc.
    Thanks,

    ReplyDelete