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glebedev's picture

WebGL through Silverlight/Monolight

Posted Thursday, 24 September, 2009 - 23:16 by glebedev in

Hi all.

There is new big feature arriving for web developers - WebGL. Basicly it is OpenGL ES 2.0 available from javascript.

Since OpenTK is .NET library, it should be possible to create new platform - Silverlight/Monolight with WebGL binding. My idea is to create invisible silverlight object which can create and control HTML canvas. It is 100% possible. I just don't know where to start :)

Please, help me to find how to create new platform in OpenTK.

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the Fiddler's picture

Re: WebGL through Silverlight/Monolight

Posted Thursday, 24 September, 2009 - 23:42 by the Fiddler

I've been keeping an eye out for WebGL but there's not much information available at this point.

As far as I know, Silverlight/Moonlight don't allow p/invoking native libraries (please correct me if I am wrong). With this limitation in place, it is simply not possible to use OpenTK on Silverlight (OpenTK relies on unmanaged APIs heavily).

It might be possible to add a modified version of the OpenGL|ES bindings into Moonlight itself but this won't work on Silverlight for obvious reasons.

Until we find a workaround for the p/invoke limitation, there is little point in trying to add a Silverlight platform to OpenTK.

glebedev's picture

Re: WebGL through Silverlight/Monolight

Posted Friday, 25 September, 2009 - 05:50 by glebedev

pinvoke is not the only way...

 
			HtmlDocument doc = HtmlPage.Document;
			canvas = doc.GetElementById("webglcanvas");
 
			ScriptObject gl = null;
			try
			{
				if (gl == null)
					gl = canvas.Invoke("getContext", new object[] { "moz-webgl" }) as ScriptObject;
			}
			catch(Exception ex)
			{
				Debug.WriteLine(ex.ToString());
			}
			try
			{
				if (gl == null)
					gl = canvas.Invoke("getContext", new object[] { "webkit-3d" }) as ScriptObject;
			}
			catch (Exception ex)
			{
				Debug.WriteLine(ex.ToString());
			}
			if (gl != null)
			{
				arrayBuffer = gl.Invoke("createBuffer");
			}
the Fiddler's picture

Re: WebGL through Silverlight/Monolight

Posted Friday, 25 September, 2009 - 07:20 by the Fiddler

I am not familiar with Silverlight. In the example above, how are you going to access WebGL functions from C#?

glebedev's picture

Re: WebGL through Silverlight/Monolight

Posted Friday, 25 September, 2009 - 08:06 by glebedev

>I am not familiar with Silverlight. In the example above, how are you going to access WebGL functions from C#?

this is an example of WebGL method invokation:

gl.Invoke("createBuffer");

Step by step:

1. I take an element by id from HTML page. It should be < canvas >.
canvas = doc.GetElementById("webglcanvas");

Actualy we can create an element by ourself.

2. Here I take WebGL context object:
gl = canvas.Invoke("getContext", new object[] { "moz-webgl" }) as ScriptObject;

3. Now I can invoke any WebGL method:
gl.Invoke("createBuffer");

the Fiddler's picture

Re: WebGL through Silverlight/Monolight

Posted Friday, 25 September, 2009 - 09:23 by the Fiddler

Ah, I see. Thanks for the explanation!

In this case, it should be possible to write a Silverlight/Moonlight driver for OpenTK. I will upload documentation for the internals of OpenTK to the hacking OpenTK section of the documentation, but until then a quick overview. A Silverlight port would consist of three parts:

  1. An implementation of OpenTK.Platform.IPlatformFactory using Silverlight APIs.
  2. The addition of the new Silverlight platform to OpenTK.Platform.Factory.
  3. The "rerouting" of OpenGL|ES function calls to WebGL.

For #1, you'd need to implement the interfaces used in the IPlatformFactory (for example, IGraphicsContext, INativeWindow) using Silverlight. The OpenTK.Platform namespace provides a few abstract base classes which will make this process easier.

I don't know the exact capabilities of Silverlight but you'd probably stub many of these interfaces without providing a complete implementation. For example, judging from the above code snippet, you don't have any control over the WebGL graphics mode - in that case, you can stub IGraphicsMode without implementing it.

We don't need to worry about #2 just yet: just hardcode the Silverlight platform into the OpenTK.Platform.Factory constructor. The long-term solution is to add a form of "plugin" interface to OpenTK, where the user can provide IPlatformFactory implementations at runtime.

For #3, the ideal solution is to add an exact WebGL binding to OpenGL. Since the exact WebGL specs are not released yet, we can fake this by using the OpenGL|ES bindings. This requires a small (but not exactly terrible) hack: in the Silverlight IGraphicsContextInternal.LoadAll() implementation we can use reflection to reroute the OpenGL|ES delegates to call (for example) gl.Invoke("createBuffer") instead of using the "createBuffer" p/invoke.

I guess an experienced Silverlight hacker could piece together an alpha implementation without too much trouble (it's certainly easier than dealing with the madness of X11 or win32!) As I said before, I am not familiar with Silverlight but I can certainly help with any issues that arise on the OpenTK part.