3D Web hits the big time: Google Maps on WebGL

3D Web hits the big time: Google Maps on WebGL(news.cnet.com)

60 points by stevefink 14 years ago | 18 comments

azakai 14 years ago |

> At present, the Firefox beta and Chrome support WebGL

Um, Firefox has supported WebGL in release builds for quite a long time now.

mildweed 14 years ago | |

Yes, but it seems Google doesn't let Firefox access MapsGL yet. Your guess as to why...

magicalist 14 years ago | | |

It works in my Firefox 8 (which is indeed beta). I can't think of a reason in particular, but there was probably something added in Firefox 8 that it needs (eg full CORS support or something)

edit: yep: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/WebGL/Cross-Domain_Textures (at least, that is an important WebGL feature coming in Firefox 8)

jaredsohn 14 years ago |

Here is a Chrome extension that will modify existing pages built with the Google maps API v3 to enable it:

https://github.com/broady/ForceWebGL

Florin_Andrei 14 years ago |

It looks like WebGL maps have their own GPU exclusion list, or something. I launched Chrome with --ignore-gpu-blacklist and WebGL maps still refuses to run.

Chrome 14, Intel Mobile 4, Ubuntu 11.04

LPCRoy 14 years ago | |

We do not have an exclusion list, but we do run a micro-benchmark on your machine to ensure your GPU will be powerful enough to handle MapsGL. You can try upgrading your drivers as well, which sometimes improves performance (looks like intel put out new device drivers for that chip about a year ago)

keeperofdakeys 14 years ago | |

You could try enabling the "Override software rendering list" option in about:flags, although that is probably the same as the --ignore-gpu-blacklist option.

kamechan 14 years ago | |

sadly, didn't work on my 2011 MBA with chrome 15 beta.

seddona 14 years ago | | |

I concur, which is silly as webgl works great on the MBA.

GrantS 14 years ago |

It was news to me that Safari supports WebGL -- the "Enable WebGL" option was sitting up there in the Develop menu all this time when I've been switching to Chrome for WebGL pages.

aidenn0 14 years ago |

Too bad WebGL doesn't work on my linux box

rorrr 14 years ago |

Works very well on my weak laptop GPU.

It actually seems smoother than the regular canvas implementation. Plus there are nice transition effects.

Not sure how practical it is though, but I do like the idea of shifting graphics intensive work to the GPU.

suivix 14 years ago |

Does this have IE6 - IE8 support?

LPCRoy 14 years ago | |

Sorry, this will only work in browsers that support WebGL, so Chrome and FF7+ for now.

throwaway64 14 years ago | | |

this does not support ff7

dualogy 14 years ago | |

Sure, just install the ChromeFrame plugin!

akavlie 14 years ago | |

No, nor IE9 support. Nor IE10 even. Microsoft isn't too keen on WebGL.