Following on my previous post on Node.js, I continued to catch up with what I missed in JavaScript, and I discovered 3D with three.js.
Back in my college days I played with OpenGL in C but as 3D was not a primary focus at the time I never went very far as the scaffolding required to get started was too time consuming.
But with three.js you can prototype amazing animations in just a few lines.
I wrote two samples using this library, best used with Google Chrome:
- CrazyBox: this simply shows a box rotating randomly at the center of the space, throwing spheres around. The spheres are moving according to a parabolic movement caused by a constant gravity, with no friction. You can move around the box using the mouse thanks to orbit.js
- Rosenbrock: in this one you visualize particles animated following a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) searching for the minimum of the Rosenbrock function
Let me know if you need explanations on the parabolic movement or the PSO code.
Enjoy!