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Version History

Version 2.0.0-beta3:

The changes in beta 3 from beta 2 include:

• The main library files were converted to ECMAScript’s import/export convention. The rollup tool is used to help generate the h3du_min.js file.
• HTML documentation included in distribution.
• “Norm” methods in MathUtil were renamed to use “Normalize” instead.
• New convex.js in extras folder generates the convex hull of a set of points.
• New interp.js in extras folder provides a cubic Bézier interpolation function.
• New spline.js in extras folder generates piecewise interpolating curves.
• New demos added, including demos showing how to generate procedural content using shaders.
• Several methods in H3DU.GraphicsPath were reimplemented.
• H3DU.BezierCurve and H3DU.BezierSpline are deprecated.
• H3DU.CurveBuilder and H3DU.SurfaceBuilder classes were created; they replace now-deprecated H3DU.CurveEval and H3DU.SurfaceEval classes.
• H3DU.MeshBuffer contains many new methods; in exchange, many of the H3DU.Mesh methods reimplemented in H3DU.MeshBuffer are deprecated.
• H3DU.Mesh is considerably deemphasized in this version; that class should only be used for building meshes, not storing them.
• H3DU.Curve and H3DU.Surface were created; these classes represent parametric curves and surfaces and offer methods for querying information at a given point on the curve or surface. Made several class derive from either class, including H3DU.BSplineCurve, H3DU.BSplineSurface, and new class H3DU.PiecewiseCurve.
• H3DU.RenderPass3D renamed to H3DU.RenderPass.
• Deleted fromBasic and fromBasicTexture methods from H3DU.PbrMaterial.
• Added JOINTS and WEIGHTS constants to H3DU.Semantic.
• Preliminary support for occlusion maps.
• Default diffuse/albedo in Material and PbrMaterial is now (1,1,1,1).
• New H3DU.BufferAccessor class represents a single vertex buffer.
• Many methods outside H3DU.Mesh now return H3DU.MeshBuffer instead of H3DU.Mesh.
• Bug fixes.

Version 2.0.0-beta2:

The changes in beta 2 from beta 1 include:

• Added H3DU.PbrMaterial class and supported physically-based shading in the default shader.
• H3DU.Shape objects contain H3DU.PbrMaterial by default.
• Extras folder contains a glTF loader, which is preliminary and incomplete.
• H3DU.Scene3D will create a WebGL 2 rendering context if possible and supported by the browser.
• H3DU.MeshBuffer stores vertex data by semantic (such as position, normal or texture coordinates), rather than by name.
• The new H3DU.Semantic class contains constants for attribute and uniform semantics.
• The new H3DU.TextureInfo class is a lightweight class for storing a texture’s settings, but not its data.
• H3DU.ShaderInfo class can now accept H3DU.TextureInfo objects as uniform values.
• H3DU.Material can accept a parameter object in the constructor as it can in the setParams method, similarly to the new H3DU.PbrMaterial class.
• Added fromBasic and fromBasicTexture methods to H3DU.Material class.
• Many new methods were added to the MathUtil class, including methods to add and subtract 4-element vectors, to clamp vectors, and to convert to and from linearized RGB colors, as well as vec3proj, vec4proj, mat3invert, and vec3fromWindowPoint methods. The frustumHasBox method was improved.
• The shapeCount, getShape, setShape, and copy methods were added to H3DU.ShapeGroup.
• New H3DU.CubeMap class holds information on the textures that make up a cube map. However, cube maps are not yet supported in the default shader (its code is currently commented out)
• In the H3DU.GraphicsPath extra, added methods for high-level shapes and path interpolation and improved code on path triangulation.
• H3DU.TextFont extra supports multichannel signed distance field fonts.
• Several new demos were added.
• Some methods were removed: setMaterialParams methods from both H3DU.Shape and H3DU.ShapeGroup; mapTexture and mapTexturesAll methods from TextureLoader; forShader method from H3DU.Material.
• Renamed setOrientation and multOrientation in H3DU.Transform to setRotation and multRotation, and deprecated the old names.
• Bug fixes.

Version 2.0.0-beta1:

There are many, many changes to version 2.0.0-beta1 from version 1.5.1. Here are some of them, including the most important ones.

• All classes in the main library are moved to a new namespace called H3DU. For example, Shape is now Shape and Mesh is now Mesh. Many classes in the “extras” directory are also moved to the H3DU namespace.
• Scene3D, now Scene3D, is no longer meant to be a scene graph of objects to draw. That job now belongs to the new Batch3D class. Scene3D’s render method now takes an array of Batch3Ds to render. For compatibility, though, the methods allowing it to manage 3D models and the coordinate system, such as makeShape and setPerspective, can still be used until H3DU.Scene3D renders a custom H3DU.Batch3D. This compatibility behavior may be dropped in the future.
• Alpha is disabled in WebGL contexts created with the get3DOr2DContext method.
• The Scene3D Scene3D#useProgram method was deprecated and now does nothing.
• New RenderPass3D class holds information about how a batch of 3D models is to be rendered. It replaces the Scene3D Scene3D#useFilter method, which now does nothing.
• New FrameBufferInfo class holds information about a frame buffer; it replaces FrameBuffer.
• The BufferedMesh, FrameBuffer, and ShaderProgram classes are deprecated because they are too tightly coupled with a particular WebGL context. Instead, use MeshBuffer, FrameBufferInfo, and ShaderInfo, respectively, which are not coupled to WebGL contexts.
• Rendering can make use of vertex array objects internally, if supported by the WebGL implementation.
• The Shape object is no longer coupled to vertex buffers.
• The LightSource class now supports a radius of the light.
• The TextureLoader class was added for loading textures; a single object of this class can load and upload images from multiple WebGL contexts. This is unlike BufferedMesh, FrameBuffer, and ShaderProgram, which are tied to the WebGL context.
• GLMath, now Math, was expanded with many new methods. The documentation for it is now very detailed. New methods include MathUtil.vec3perp, MathUtil.vec3toWindowPoint, and MathUtil.mat4projectVec3.
• Two new classes in the “extras” folder support 2D text rendering and texture atlases (as sprite sheets), namely, TextFont and TextureAtlas.
• The “doc” folder contains the documentation to the library in the form of Markdown text files.
• The Camera class, now Camera, was rewritten.
• A build script was included in the repository. This build includes a style checker which is run on the library’s JavaScript files.
• Many methods were added to many classes. Some methods that didn’t return a value now return the value of the object called on, for example, the clear method of H3DU.Scene3D.
• New demos, including spinbox.html and quatlerp.html. For example, the gears.html demo was moved from the separate “html-gears” repository to here. Other demos were expanded or rewritten. Viewport meta tags were added to the demos.
• The underlying code used in H3DU.toGLColor was rewritten. In particular, the “#RRGGBBAA” format is now supported.
• The JavaScript source code better conforms to a uniform code style.
• The experimental 2D canvas renderer in surfaces2d.html, was abandoned.
• Added dispose method to H3DU.Scene3D.
• Added createPointedStar and createLathe methods to H3DU.Meshes.
• Added getBounds and toLinePath methods to GraphicsPath, an extra, as well as an extra that adds methods that compute the intersection, difference, union, and XOR of two polygons. Path triangulation now supports polygons with holes.
• The default light configuration is no lights when creating a LightSource. The exception, for compatibility purposes, is when using a Scene3D without rendering a custom Batch3D, in which case the default is one light source with its default values.
• The default value for specular materials (Material) is now (0.1, 0.1, 0.1). The default value for shininess is now 32.
• The Mesh class no longer supports multiple primitive types (lines, triangles, points). Using different modes that use the same primitive type (for example, TRIANGLE_FAN and QUAD_STRIP) in the same mesh is still supported.
• Many of the tutorials were edited heavily to accommodate the new version. The GraphicsPath tutorial was added.
• There were also numerous bug fixes.
• A known issue: When using the Camera in conjunction with the compatibility behavior of Scene3D, only one side of the scene will appear lighted by default.

Version 1.5.1:

• Fixed bug in normal calculation
• Make certain changes to the demos to ensure compatibility with the next major version
• Fix curve returned by GraphicsPath#getCurves() so that closed paths remain smooth at their endpoints when a curve tube is generated from them

Version 1.5:

• Add support for specular maps and normal maps, including in the JSON mesh format and MTL material format.
• To support normal maps, extra methods for bitangents and tangents were added to the Mesh class.
• Added six new demos and modified several others
• Support 24-bit color versions of TGA files
• Scene3D now does frustum culling of its shapes
• Fixed vertex normal calculation in the recalcNormals() method of the Mesh class.
• Allow two-element arrays to be passed to the Mesh class’s texCoord3() method.
• Add getBoundingBox method to the Mesh class.
• Add the setVisible method to the Shape and ShapeGroup classes.
• Allow reading OBJ files with negative reference numbers
• Add path.js (2D graphics paths) to extras
• Added an “axis” parameter to the SurfaceOfRevolution constructor and fromFunction method
• Add vec3negate, vec3negateInPlace, vec3mul, and plane and frustum methods to the GLMath class
• Deprecate the practice of setting shape materials directly to textures (calling the Shape#setMaterial method with a Texture object rather than a Material object).
• Deprecate certain properties of Transform that shouldn’t be exposed as a public API and add corresponding methods for those properties
• Fix getPromiseResults
• Documentation added in many places
• “meshexamples.md” demo added and other demos edited or rearranged
• Other changes and fixes

Version 1.4:

• Fixed camera.js issues (thanks to the user “the-sz” on GitHub)
• Added an extras folder with the following new scripts:
  • A CurveTube class for creating tubes from 3D curves
  • A parametric evaluator for surfaces of revolution and 3 kinds of curves (evaluators.js)
  • A frame counter (moved from the demos)
  • A JSON converter and loader for 3D meshes (meshjson.js)
• Made objmtl.js compatible with more MTL files
• Math.sin/Math.cos pairs were replaced with optimized versions throughout the code
• Add mat4transformVec3 method to GLMath
• Add BSplineCurve class
• Deprecate vertexBezier, normalBezier, colorBezier, and texCoordBezier methods of CurveEval and SurfaceEval
• Optimize SurfaceEval’s evalSurface method when generating triangles
• Add primitiveCount and enumPrimitives methods to the Mesh class
• Add setMaterial and removeShape methods to the ShapeGroup class
• Default shader program now uses modelViewMatrix instead of separate world and view uniforms
• Fix JSON issues in H3DU.loadFileFromUrl method
• Many new demos added
• Add graphics filters tutorial and expanded several other tutorials

Version 1.3.1:

• Fixed touch events in some of the interactive demos
• Fixed issues with BezierCurve, BezierSurface
• Robustness improvement in autonormal feature of SurfaceEval
• Correctness and other fixes

Version 1.3:

• Camera class rewritten again, but backwards compatible with version 1.0
• Add vec3add, vec3sub, vec3copy, vec3assign, vec4assign methods to GLMath
• Fix quatInvert method and optimize mat4inverseTranspose method of GLMath
• Add reverseNormals method to GLMath
• Add createCanvasElement, getTimePosition, and newFrames methods to GLUtil
• Deprecate createCanvas method of GLUtil
• Improve renderLoop method of GLUtil
• Improved specular highlights
• Allow coordinate arrays in vertex2 and vertex3 methods of Mesh class
• Resolve some autonormal degenerate cases in SurfaceEval class
• Add getCount method to Lights class
• Add face culling, auto resize, and pixel depth methods to Scene3D class
• Add getClientAspect method to Scene3D class
• Other fixes and improvements

Version 1.2.1:

• Fix bug that occurs when a shape derived from a mesh that defines its own colors is drawn before a shape derived from a mesh that doesn’t define its own colors

Version 1.2:

• Support TGA textures
• Camera class rewritten and support added for the mouse wheel and middle mouse button
• Lines and points supported in OBJ files
• Support loading custom textures from byte arrays
• Add method to create capsule shapes in Meshes class
• Mesh builder (vector3 method) avoids adding degenerate triangles
• Optimizations and bug fixes

Version 1.1:

• Add frame.js, a frame counter helper used in some of the demos
• Add quatInvert method to the GLMath class
• Fix texture mapping bugs
• Expand use of the color3 method of the Mesh class
• Optimize setUniforms method of the ShaderProgram class
• Add movePosition method of the Transform class
• New methods in the ShapeGroup and Scene3D classes
• Bug fixes

Version 1.0:

• Adds setOrtho2DAspect and setOrthoAspect methods to Scene3D
• Adds mat4TransposeInPlace method and two constants to GLMath
• Renames fromEuler and toEuler methods in GLMath to fromTaitBryan and toTaitBryan
• Modifies the Lights class
• Allows alpha component in material diffuse
• Optimizes setting uniforms in shader programs
• Adds vertex2 method to Mesh class
• New classes: Transform and ShapeGroup
• Most methods that affect transforms removed, and their functionality now uses a new getTransform method and the Transform class
• Bug fixes

Version 0.2:

• First Code Project release

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