WebGL API Exploration

GitHub Pages

This document enumerates the WebGL API methods, fields and various other related resources and serves as a "form" for me to fill in in my quest to explore the WebGL API. The idea is that familiarizing myself with each of these, even if briefly at best for most, will improve my overall understanding of the scope and feature set of WebGL and give me the nomenclature and understanding of WebGL required to be able to effectively search for information as I go developing software using WebGL.

This README is fetched and parsed by the accompanying web application which itself probes the WebGL API in the browser for all its members. Headings in this document which match a WebGL member name have their content be displayed in the application.

To run the application either run the file directly in Firefox or use npx serve . in Chrome or other browsers.

DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT

A constant passed to clear to clear the depth buffer.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebGL_API/Constants#Clearing_buffers

STENCIL_BUFFER_BIT

A constant passed to clear to clear the stencil buffer.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebGL_API/Constants#Clearing_buffers

COLOR_BUFFER_BIT

A constant passed to clear to clear the color buffer.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebGL_API/Constants#Clearing_buffers

POINTS

Passed to drawElements or drawArrays to draw single points.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebGL_API/Constants#Rendering_primitives

LINES

Passed to drawElements or drawArrays to draw a polyline.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebGL_API/Constants#Rendering_primitives

LINE_LOOP

Passed to drawElements or drawArrays to draw line segments (pairs of vertices).

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebGL_API/Constants#Rendering_primitives

LINE_STRIP

TRIANGLES

ZERO

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebGL_API/Constants#Blending_modes

CW

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebGL_API/Constants#Front_face_directions

CCW

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebGL_API/Constants#Front_face_directions

To-Do

Add GitHub Pages URL

Find out what a stencil buffer is

Make a demo of drawing single points and polylines

Find out how LINES and LINE_STRIP differ

Find out how the triangle variations differ

Make a demo of blendFunc and blendFuncSeparate and the equations methods

Find out what ARRAY_BUFFER_BINDING does

Find out what the default face culling is and make a demo for it

See if VIEWPORT changes if the canvas dimensions change

Because getContext always returns the same instance which doesn't seem to adjust for dimensions