
Using A-Frame for WebVR and AR - sp332
http://elevr.com/using-a-frame-for-webvr-and-ar/
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thenayr
I built a Kubernetes Pod visualizer using A-Frame back in October of last year
- [https://medium.com/@iamnayr/building-the-kubernetes-
virtual-...](https://medium.com/@iamnayr/building-the-kubernetes-virtual-
reality-experience-b681464f0c98)

Fantastic framework, I haven't had my hands on it in a number of months but I
know there have been some big improvements just in that time frame alone.

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wavefunction
Austin McDaniel just gave an interesting talk at ng-conf where he demoed a
visualization of an Angular4 app's architecture and component parts as a
series of gardens populated with trees using A-Frame.

While not perhaps a very useful visualization, seeing A-Frame in use was great
and now I need a VR capable rig!

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whatnotests
I just got an Oculus Rift and am dying to try my hand at making something of
my own to experience with it.

Is A-Frame a tool I could use for this purpose?

~~~
ngokevin
Yup, A-Frame supports Rift/Touch and Vive with controllers and room scale
(Firefox Nightly)! Watch me code A-Frame room scale VR with motion capture
recording
[https://www.twitch.tv/videos/133862568](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/133862568)

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spankalee
This is a really amazing use of Web Components.

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JohnnyConatus
Can anyone comment on how this compares to Unity? I want to believe.

~~~
mncharity
Unity is currently far more mature than A-Frame and WebVR. Products vs very
small tech demos.

A-Frame integrates with webdev tooling - eg
[https://github.com/aframevr/aframe-react](https://github.com/aframevr/aframe-
react) . Think HTML5 vs Flash.

A-Frame is pioneering, making architectural choices which may or may not pan
out. Think Angular 1.

Neither WebVR nor UnityVR are currently usable on Linux. Think "I got my
simple test scene to not core dump!". MacOS has almost nothing. Android has
some support from both, and iOS less, but I'm unfamiliar with them. There's a
lot of Windows-centrism in the current VR community - if someone says
something "works", they likely mean on Windows, with android a distant second.
Once upon a time, Microsoft would write MS-only non-standard web extensions...
now Google and Mozilla are doing the writing for them.

So, I generally recommend: Unity on Windows for VR beginners and exploration;
Unity or [https://www.unrealengine.com/](https://www.unrealengine.com/)
(better Linux support) for more serious work. But there are other options. And
for WebVR, Windows (or Android?), A-Frame for beginners, direct three.js for
more serious work, and perhaps aframe-react for exploratory VR webdev.

Aside: And for a hypothetical never-met person who wishes to run a Vive with
WebVR on Linux, there's also my [https://github.com/mncharity/node-webvr-alt-
stack](https://github.com/mncharity/node-webvr-alt-stack) ... but I didn't
finish WebVR 1.1 and A-Frame support.

------
oh_sigh
Is this just a modern VRML?

~~~
ngokevin
So VRML's a 3D file format, and A-Frame's an entity-component JavaScript
framework. Check out
[https://github.com/aframevr/aframe](https://github.com/aframevr/aframe) and
you should be able to discern.

~~~
wildpeaks
VRML both had node definitions and a scripting part, it's not just a 3D file
format in the sense that it's not just describing 3d meshes but also how to
interact with it.

~~~
ngokevin
True, but the interaction pieces were still part of the format, and probably
limited in power. Though I'm a bit too young to have been experienced that
era, so I don't fully understand the comparisons.

But I know today A-Frame has full access to JavaScript, DOM APIs, three.js,
and Web so it's looking more towards building full stateful applications.

