Leaving Flatland: Getting Started with WebGL

A session at SXSW Interactive 2012

WebGL has brought 3D Graphics to the browser offering a new world of possibilities for visualization and interaction. In this talk, we give you all the information you need to start using WebGL. WebGL has an unfair reputation for a high entry barrier, understanding what WebGL can do and using the right frameworks can help you very quickly create amazing stuff.

We will cover the following aspects: what WebGL is and what you can use it for (with some of our own awesome examples), the browsers and devices that support WebGL and what you can expect for the future, when and why you would want (or not want) to use WebGL, and some more hands-on stuff like sample code, frameworks and resources.

About the speakers

This person is speaking at this event.

Nicolas Garcia Belmonte

Sr Software Architect, Sencha Inc

Nicolas Garcia Belmonte is a computer science engineer responsible for the HTML5 visualization frameworks at Sencha. Nicolas is the author of the JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit (http://thejit.org/), a web standards based tool to create interactive data visualizations for the Web and also PhiloGL (http://senchalabs.org/philogl) a WebGL framework for advanced data visualization and creative coding. You can find more about him at http://philogb.github.com/.

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This person is speaking at this event.

Luz Caballero

Web Opener, Opera Software

Luz is a Web Opener at Opera. She works with developers to help them use web standards to make the Web open and accessible to all. Having a degree in Mechanical Engineering and a doctorate in UX, Luz became interested in WebGL as a means to realistically represent the geometry and physics of the real world to provide users with an immersive experience.