

Three.js editor - templaedhel
http://mrdoob.github.com/three.js/editor/

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TeMPOraL
Another direction the author could take with this: a CAD app. Specifically,
because TinkerCAD is shutting down, 3D printing community desperately needs a
new CAD tool usable by 10-years-old kids. There's a huge opportunity there.

TinkerCAD was very popular with 3D printing people, because it was _stupidly
simple_ and easy to learn, while still being a very functional CAD tool.

~~~
pavlov
I worked at Tinkercad for about 6 months last year (mostly on the WebGL-based
editor, but the engineering team was only 5 people so there was lots of other
stuff to do as well). It's an awesome product; I'm surprised and sad to see it
closing down, but at the same time I can understand why they decided to pivot
the core tech into a new company.

Basically Tinkercad had two unique advantages: a world-class massively
parallel solid geometry kernel, and a 3D design UI that made ease of use first
priority. Tinkercad emphasized the latter in their product image, but it
became somewhat pigeonholed as a "children's CAD", which made it difficult to
switch the same product into a pro gear. They've now made the decision to
pursue the revenue potential of the pro market, and that requires a new
product image.

If someone wants to jump onto the opportunity of building a Tinkercad
replacement, I know a few things about this space and am available for hire...
;)

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templaedhel
Just want to be clear, I am not the developer behind this. I found this and
was looking for discussion on HN about it because it was quite impressive. I
wasn't able to find it by searching so I submitted it in hopes that it would
take me to the past article (that is how the url duplicate detection code used
to work), but instead it created a new story.

~~~
nej
Great find, this is excellent.

~~~
ashcairo
Mr. Doob talked about this at JSConf EU 2012. Here's a link if you're
interested in finding out more about it:
<http://youtu.be/qx40CRwwkS8?t=25m31s>

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neya
Wow! This is the future of 3d!!

I'm a hardcore 3ds MAX fan and I simply LOVE this!!

Do you know of the possibilities this provides? Have a look at this:

<http://carvisualizer.plus360degrees.com/threejs/>

Content creation tools are extremely important for any technology to gain
traction. That's how Flash (in the early days) gained traction (Macromedia
Flash 4, remember?)

And this editor solves the problem (still a long way to go...but very much
possible)

All the best!

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toffeklang
This is a very impressive project. Kudos!

On a small side note, I got ridiculously excited about "Help -> Source Code".
I really want that in every app.

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muglug
Nothing much to add except, well, wow. You've clearly put a ton of work into
making this great and fast. Random directions you could take this: level
editor, interior design room layout, pop-up-book creator etc. The key is to
get the UI right, which is a Hard Thing when it comes to translating 2D
movements into 3D space.

~~~
mrdoob2
I'm personally using it as a level editor. And I also used it for quickly
modelling my flat before going to Ikea ;)

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bengotow
Wow this is really impressive—just out of curiosity, how did you show the
standard Mac OS X color picker from the browser window? That particular bit
seemed very cool for some reason :-)

~~~
chime
Pretty sure it's using <http://www.w3.org/TR/html-markup/input.color.html>

~~~
dubcanada
It is indeed.

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reustle
For those curious, this works great on mobile (Firefox on a Nexus 4)

~~~
bsimpson
I'm surprised that Firefox Mobile supports WebGL (and pretty quickly too).
Neither Chrome nor Safari do.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
It's weird more browsers don't, considering WebGL is based on OpenGL ES, and
most mobile devices implement ES.

~~~
zethraeus
It's likely just a matter of perf. on mobile devices. If the browser's
rendering/compositing is itself using too much of the GPU's resources to
simultaneously run anything worthwhile in WebGL, it's probably not worth
exposing it.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Well, mobile games use the GPU all the time, I don't see why web apps can't.
Browsers could prompt before using it, that's what the BlackBerry PlayBook
does.

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kayoone
I fear that three.js will be more or less obsolete with the rise of
emscripten/asm.js which allows basically any 3D Engine there is to Run inside
the browser. There is still some work todo in regards to quicker deployment
but i wouldnt invest heavily in pure JS based engines right now as there will
be tremendous leaps in this space (eg Unreal Engine3) in the coming months.

That being said, this is an awesome Tool!

~~~
mrdoob2
I can't wait for the day when three.js gets obsoleted. That would mean that
someone would have done a free and open source 3d library that is easier to
use and with a better designed API. Until then, we'll keep going.

~~~
bluepill
lol

~~~
bluepill
why a downvote?

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devsatish
This is cool. Three.Js has been a cool library to import 3d models in various
file formats and render them, just using Javascript without need of flash or
any 3d player. A editor is a good next step.

For those seeing empty screens or white-pages, your browser may not be
configured or doesn't support webgl. Three JS supports a svg and a canvas
renderer. Try samples on three.js github site.

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dubcanada
fyi, I get a white page in Opera.

~~~
Stealth-
Same with Chromium.

    
    
      Error creating WebGL context. three.min.js:390
      Uncaught TypeError: Cannot call method 'getExtension' of null three.min.js:390

~~~
gabipurcaru
Works great in my chromium ("Version 24.0.1312.56 Built on Ubuntu 12.04,
running on elementary OS 0.2 (24.0.1312.56-0ubuntu0.12.04.1)")

~~~
criley
Worked great in Chrome (Version 25.0.1364.172 m) on XP/32.

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mmcclure
When I see things like this I like to go to the 90s on the Wayback Machine and
remind myself just how far the web has come. This is really cool stuff.

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chmike
When I access the page with my iPad 1, it's all blank and white. What am I
suppose to see ? Is it a github problem ?

~~~
templaedhel
I think that is your iPad not supporting webGL.

~~~
chmike
How am I suppose to know there is webGL on this page and that the problem is
the iPad and Safari browser ? What I don't understand are the down votes. What
is the problem ?

~~~
dualogy
Next time, use a real computer for accessing "cutting-edge/next-gen stuff" HN
links, not a consumer toy (and an outdated one at that)..

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ronreiter
I love you mrdoob

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michaelbuddy
what do i do in it. i just see the xyz grid. can i make a model or import an
obj file?

~~~
surrealize
You can add objects and lights using the "Add" menu.

~~~
michaelbuddy
thank you, I didn't even seen this till after I stared a while at it.

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jfmercer
This is brilliant. Great work.

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hardwaresofton
This is impressive. Well done

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itry
Nice! Please add:

    
    
        * Import Objects
        
        * A Raytracer

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tanguy12345
Wow great project!

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klaut
uhm, i get a blank page in mountain lion Safari.

~~~
craigching
Worked for me, Mac OSX 10.8.3 Safari 6.0.3

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kprasad587
not opening the page

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camus
cool,with just a few libs no bloated mvc framework.

~~~
mrdoob2
thanks for noticing ;)

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niggler
What was changed since the last submission
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4790688>)?

~~~
templaedhel
I actually submitted it trying to find a discussion, since I was having
trouble searching for it. When it created a new story instead of linking to
the past discussion I assumed it was new. Sorry about that!

~~~
niggler
The best bet is to use the search engine below.

