
Show HN: 3DTin - 3D modelling in browser - jayeshsalvi
http://www.3dtin.com/
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Xurinos
I clicked the link, thinking, "Please be like Blender, please be like
Blender". Then I clicked the link, found a cool voxel modeler, and was
satisfied. To clarify...

This is 3D modeling with voxels.

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bajsejohannes
Opera is not listed among the supported browsers, but everything I tried works
fine (version 11.00). Did you forget it, or does it actually have show
stopping bugs?

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aw3c2
I confirm this. Opera 11 on Linux (11.01 - 1160).

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jayeshsalvi
Yes, it should work find in Opera too (except Opera doesn't support WebGL, so
it will use Canvas 2D, hence will be comparatively slower). It's not on
supported list, because I don't test on it regularly. -3DTin Developer

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ph0rque
Impressive! It seems to be 90% of an online 3D CAD app that I've envisioned
and blogged about: <http://hacking-shindyapin.tumblr.com/tagged/3dCAD>. Any
plans on making it open-source?

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orls
That's really very impressive, I can imagine coming back to this as a rapid-
sketch tool in a way that I never could with SketchUp.

One suggestion: To aid camera/scene navigation, you might want to consider
hotkey + drag to temporarily flip into camera move modes, even when in draw
mode; many desktop 3D/CAD tools offer this. I'd opt for ctrl/⌘+drag for
rotate, and allow your existing shift+drag for panning to work in draw mode.

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jayeshsalvi
That's a good suggestion. Thanks. Not sure if hotkeys like WinKey or ⌘ can be
detected in javascript, but ctrl+drag seems doable. -3DTin Developer

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fuzzythinker
Since you gave credit to even your operating system, the fact that that you
leave out any canvas/webgl libraries probably means you didn't use any -- I'm
superly impressed! Was thinking you may be using three.js or pre3d to get it
working on both canvas & webgl.

@everyone: Try it in webgl like in Chrome Canary or FF4, huge difference in
performance and panning angle allowed.

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johnyzee
That is awesome use of canvas. What is it for?

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kevingadd
It's nice to see that you can do stuff like this without plugins now thanks to
Canvas and WebGL, even if the performance and stability aren't quite there
yet.

One particularly strange bug: Setting smoothness 'too high' (how high you can
set it seems to depend on the number of cubes) causes random parts of the
model to vanish.

The responsiveness also leaves something to be desired, especially since it
causes the browser/tab to freeze up - I thought it was supposed to be possible
to use web workers to solve that problem, but I've yet to see a HTML5 app that
actually uses them :(

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jayeshsalvi
3DTin does use Web Workers. However the smoothing algorithms generate too much
data if there are lot of cubes and/or the smoothness is high, that makes the
tab/browser unresponsive. The problem of vanished parts of the model at higher
smoothness is a known one (happens when WebGL is the backend). I've further
optimizations planned in the near future that should improve the performance
gradually and fix the bugs like vanished parts. Stay tuned. Thanks for the
feedback. -3DTin Developer

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malkia
I think smoothing of ONE is just fine - Maybe you should just leave at that.

Cool app :) - Lots to learn from it (using WebGL, etc.).

Before looking in the source code - was something like marching cubes used for
the smoothing?

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jayeshsalvi
3DTin uses Catmull-Clark subdivision to create smooth surfaces. Details here:
<http://blog.3dtin.com/smoothing-or-subsurfacing> \- 3DTin Developer

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vanni
Nice tool to make funny startup logos! :)

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edna_piranha
awesome. love it. it's almost like having lawnmower man right in the warmth of
my home.

