Sheru! Shell Bryson

At my new job I’m taking a look at WebGL for various prototype visualisations. Having tried a number of frameworks, I’ve found ThreeJS to be the easiest of them to get up and running quickly.

WebGL cube via ThreeJS

var container, stats;
var camera, scene, renderer;
var cube;

var targetRotationX = 10;
var targetRotationY = 10;
var targetRotationZ = 10;
var targetRotationOnMouseDown = 0;

var mouseX = 0;
var mouseXOnMouseDown = 10;

var mouseY = 0;
var mouseYOnMouseDown = 10;


var windowHalfX = window.innerWidth / 2;
var windowHalfY = window.innerHeight / 2;

$(function() {
    init();
    animate();
})

function init() {

    container = document.createElement( 'div' );
    document.body.appendChild( container );

    scene = new THREE.Scene();

    camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera( 70, window.innerWidth / window.innerHeight, 1, 1000 );
    camera.position.y = 150;
    camera.position.z = 500;
    scene.add( camera );
    
    // LIGHT IN FRONT
    var light = new THREE.PointLight( 0xffffff, 2.0 );
    light.position.set( 0, 500, 1000 );
    light.castShadow = false;
    scene.add( light );
    
    var materials = [];

    for ( var i = 0; i < 6; i ++ ) {
        materials.push( new THREE.MeshPhongMaterial( {
            color: 0x9CDB79,
            opacity: 0.5,
            transparent:true
        } ) );
    }

    cube = new THREE.Mesh( new THREE.CubeGeometry( 200, 200, 200, 1, 1, 1, materials ), new THREE.MeshFaceMaterial() );
    cube.position.x = 0;
    cube.position.y = 150;
    cube.position.z = 0;
    cube.rotation.x = 5;
    cube.rotation.y = 5;
    cube.rotation.z = 5;
    cube.doubleSided = true;
    cube.flipSided = false;
    cube.overdraw = true;
    cube.dynamic = false;
        
    cube.overdraw = true;
    scene.add( cube );

    renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer({ antialias: true });
    renderer.setSize( window.innerWidth, window.innerHeight );

    container.appendChild( renderer.domElement );

    stats = new Stats();
    $("#stats").append( stats.domElement )

    document.addEventListener( 'mousedown', onDocumentMouseDown, false );
}

function onDocumentMouseDown( event ) {
    event.preventDefault();
    document.addEventListener( 'mousemove', onDocumentMouseMove, false );
    document.addEventListener( 'mouseup', onDocumentMouseUp, false );
    document.addEventListener( 'mouseout', onDocumentMouseOut, false );
    mouseXOnMouseDown = event.clientX - windowHalfX;
    mouseYOnMouseDown = event.clientY - windowHalfY;
    targetRotationOnMouseDown = 5;
}
function onDocumentMouseMove( event ) {
    mouseX = event.clientX - windowHalfX;
    targetRotationY = targetRotationOnMouseDown + ( mouseX - mouseXOnMouseDown ) * 0.02;
    mouseY = event.clientY - windowHalfY;
    targetRotationX = targetRotationOnMouseDown + ( mouseY - mouseYOnMouseDown ) * 0.02;
}
function onDocumentMouseUp( event ) {
    document.removeEventListener( 'mousemove', onDocumentMouseMove, false );
    document.removeEventListener( 'mouseup', onDocumentMouseUp, false );
    document.removeEventListener( 'mouseout', onDocumentMouseOut, false );
}
function onDocumentMouseOut( event ) {
    document.removeEventListener( 'mousemove', onDocumentMouseMove, false );
    document.removeEventListener( 'mouseup', onDocumentMouseUp, false );
    document.removeEventListener( 'mouseout', onDocumentMouseOut, false );
}
function animate() {
    requestAnimationFrame( animate );
    render();
    stats.update();
}
function render() {
    cube.rotation.x += ( targetRotationX - cube.rotation.x ) * 0.05;
    cube.rotation.y += ( targetRotationY - cube.rotation.y ) * 0.05;
    renderer.render( scene, camera );
}

									

Click here to view the demo in action.