g3d

Pure Go 3D rendering library
Scene graph, PBR materials, GLTF loading. Zero CGO.
Built on gogpu/wgpu (Vulkan/Metal/DX12/GLES/Software).

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What is g3d?

g3d is a 3D rendering library — not a game engine. It provides the building blocks (scene graph, cameras, lights, materials, mesh loading) that game engines, CAD viewers, data visualizers, and AR/VR applications build upon.

Think of it like Three.js for Go: simple API, powerful rendering, zero opinion about your application architecture.

package main

import (
    "github.com/gogpu/gogpu"
    "github.com/gogpu/g3d"
)

func main() {
    app := gogpu.NewApp(gogpu.Config{Title: "g3d Hello", Width: 800, Height: 600})
    renderer := g3d.NewRenderer(app)

    scene := g3d.NewScene()
    scene.Add(g3d.NewAmbientLight(g3d.White, 0.3))
    scene.Add(g3d.NewDirectionalLight(g3d.White, 1.0))

    cube := g3d.NewMesh(g3d.NewBoxGeometry(1, 1, 1), g3d.NewStandardMaterial())
    scene.Add(cube)

    camera := g3d.NewPerspectiveCamera(75, 800.0/600.0, 0.1, 1000)
    camera.Position = g3d.Vec3{0, 0, 3}

    app.OnUpdate(func(dt float64) {
        cube.Rotation.Y += float32(dt)
    })
    app.OnDraw(func(_ *gogpu.Context) {
        renderer.Render(scene, camera)
    })
    app.Run()
}

Features

Core

• Scene graph — hierarchical Node tree with parent-child transform propagation
• Cameras — Perspective and Orthographic with configurable clip planes
• Geometries — Box, Sphere, Plane, Cylinder, Cone, Torus + custom BufferGeometry
• Renderer — Forward rendering with 3-bucket sorting (opaque, alpha mask, transparent)
• Frustum culling — automatic visibility testing against camera frustum

Materials

• BasicMaterial — unlit, for prototyping and data visualization
• StandardMaterial — PBR metallic-roughness (GLTF standard), production quality
• ShaderMaterial — custom WGSL shaders for advanced users

Lighting

• DirectionalLight — sun-like parallel light with shadow mapping
• PointLight — omnidirectional light with distance attenuation
• SpotLight — focused cone light with soft edges
• AmbientLight — uniform environment lighting

Loading

• GLTF 2.0 — binary (.glb) and JSON (.gltf) with PBR materials, animations, scene hierarchy
• Textures — PNG, JPEG, HDR for environment maps

Performance

• Zero-alloc render path — no GC pressure during frame rendering
• Instance batching — thousands of objects with minimal draw calls
• Pipeline specialization cache — compile shader variants once, reuse forever
• 4-level draw grouping — RenderPass → Pipeline → Material → Mesh → Instances

Not a Game Engine

g3d deliberately does not include:

Feature	Why Not	Where to Get It
Entity Component System	Game engine concern	Build on top, or use external ECS
Physics	Simulation concern	Integrate Bullet, ODE, or Pure Go physics
Audio	Unrelated to rendering	Use Oto, Beep, or platform audio
Networking	Unrelated to rendering	Use net/http, gRPC, WebSocket
Scripting	Engine concern	Use Lua/Wasm/Yaegi on top
Scene editor	Tool concern	Build with gogpu/ui + g3d

This separation means g3d is reusable everywhere — game engines, CAD tools, scientific visualizations, AR/VR, data dashboards.

GPU Backends

g3d renders through gogpu/wgpu, which supports:

Backend	Platforms	Status
Vulkan	Windows, Linux	Stable
Metal	macOS	Stable
DirectX 12	Windows	Stable
OpenGL ES	Windows, Linux	Stable
Software	All	Fallback

All backends are Pure Go — zero CGO, single binary deployment.

Standalone Usage

g3d works without the gogpu application framework. Bring your own window and GPU device:

// Use g3d with any wgpu.Device — no gogpu dependency required
device, queue := myCustomGPUSetup()
renderer := g3d.NewRendererFromDevice(device, queue)

scene := g3d.NewScene()
// ... build your scene
renderer.Render(scene, camera)

Architecture

Your Application (game engine, CAD viewer, data viz, AR/VR)
         |
    gogpu/g3d  — Scene Graph + PBR + GLTF + Render Pipeline
         |
    gogpu/wgpu — Pure Go WebGPU (Vulkan/Metal/DX12/GLES)
         |
    gogpu/naga — Shader Compiler (WGSL → SPIR-V/MSL/GLSL/HLSL)

g3d depends down (wgpu, naga), never up (gogpu, gg, ui). This ensures it can be used in any context.

Installation

go get github.com/gogpu/g3d

Requirements: Go 1.25+

Roadmap

Phase	Features	Status
Phase 1	Scene graph, cameras, basic materials, box/sphere/plane, renderer	Planned
Phase 2	PBR lighting, shadows, StandardMaterial, normal maps	Planned
Phase 3	GLTF 2.0 loader, skeletal animation, morph targets	Planned
Phase 4	Instance batching, environment maps, post-processing, skybox	Planned
Phase 5	Frustum culling BVH, LOD, SIMD math, pipeline cache	Planned

Design Principles

1. Simple API — 15 lines for a lit rotating cube. Progressive complexity.
2. Zero CGO — Pure Go on all platforms. Single binary deployment.
3. Reusable — rendering library, not a framework. No opinions about your architecture.
4. PBR from day one — metallic-roughness workflow, GLTF standard.
5. Zero-alloc rendering — no GC pressure in the hot path.
6. All GPU backends — Vulkan, Metal, DX12, GLES, Software through wgpu.

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Priority areas:

1. GLTF loading — parser and material mapping
2. Shader development — PBR, shadows, post-processing in WGSL
3. Geometry primitives — additional built-in shapes
4. Examples — showcase real-world usage
5. Testing — cross-platform GPU rendering tests

Part of the GoGPU Ecosystem

g3d is part of GoGPU — a Pure Go GPU computing ecosystem with 632K+ lines of code.

Library	Purpose
gogpu	Application framework, windowing
wgpu	Pure Go WebGPU (Vulkan/Metal/DX12/GLES)
naga	Shader compiler (WGSL → SPIR-V/MSL/GLSL/HLSL)
gg	2D graphics with GPU acceleration
g3d	3D rendering (this library)
ui	GUI toolkit (22+ widgets, 4 themes)
systray	System tray (Win32/macOS/Linux)

License

MIT License — see LICENSE for details.