Google bringing 3D acceleration to Chrome

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 24 Jul 2009 at 11:10

Google has begun work on integrating O3D, its graphics acceleration API, into its Chrome browser.

O3D is an open-source JavaScript API that allows browsers to tap into the OpenGL graphics interface, giving them the ability to render complex 3D effects. Google hopes that one day browser-based 3D apps will match the performance of native desktop applications.

"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: to build the O3D plugin into the Chromium code base and link it into Chromium DLL," notes O3D programmer Greg Spencer.

Chromium is the open-source project that forms the basis of the Chrome browser, and Spencer admitted that folding O3D into the build would likely cause "ensuing calamities".

Spencer also acknowledged that creating the technology was only a first step and that the company must know convince web developers to take advantage of it.

This could prove a challenge given that Mozilla is currently working on a competing technology called C3DL, which will likely be integrated into a future version of Firefox.