The point is both Adobe and the W3C are guessing. Think how much faster we could advance if it was put in the hands of the community. A community that constantly implements, gets feedback, re-implements, collaborates. You only have to look at three.js (https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/) and similar to get an idea of what can be built on a low-level API.
[Edit: guessing, not second-guessing]
In Why HTML5 Media is not Enoughmrdoob
three.js
JavaScript2010–2026
mrdoob / three.js
three.js
JavaScript 3D Library.
79Distinct people
97Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
118.3KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
JavaScript 3D Library.
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
- fairfieldt/xcjs · linked in 2 of the same discussions
- lostdecade/diggy · linked in 2 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 11:23:53 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year97 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2010-04-25 21:11:46 UTC to 2026-09-03 20:55:40 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 2010-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 9 | 3 | 6 |
| 2011 | 2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 12 | 2 | 10 |
| 2012 | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 8 | 3 | 5 |
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 8 | 2 | 6 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 2 | 5 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 2 | 8 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 9 | 0 | 9 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 1 | 4 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
three.js
JavaScript 3D library
The aim of the project is to create an easy-to-use, lightweight, cross-browser, general-purpose 3D library. The current builds only include WebGL and WebGPU renderers but SVG and CSS3D renderers are also available as addons.
Examples —
Docs —
Manual —
Wiki —
Migrating —
Questions —
Forum —
Discord
Usage
This code creates a scene, a camera, and a geometric cube, and it adds the cube to the scene. It then creates a WebGL renderer for the scene and camera, and it adds that viewport to the document.body element. Finally, it animates the cube within the scene for the camera.
import * as THREE from 'three';
const width = window.innerWidth, height = window.innerHeight;
// init
const camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera( 70, width / height, 0.01, 10 );
camera.position.z = 1;
const scene = new THREE.Scene();
const geometry = new THREE.BoxGeometry( 0.2, 0.2, 0.2 );
const material = new THREE.MeshNormalMaterial();
const mesh = new THREE.Mesh( geometry, material );
scene.add( mesh );
const renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer( { antialias: true } );
renderer.setSize( width, height );
renderer.setAnimationLoop( animate );
document.body.appendChild( renderer.domElement );
// animation
function animate( time ) {
mesh.rotation.x = time / 2000;
mesh.rotation.y = time / 1000;
renderer.render( scene, camera );
}
If everything goes well, you should see this.
Cloning this repository
Cloning the repo with all its history results in a ~2 GB download. If you don't need the whole history you can use the depth parameter to significantly reduce download size.
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js.git
Change log
Releases
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
12 sourcesWow: WebGL, CSS/Dom and Canvas renderers.
EaselJS has been considering it[1], and even Three.js has it[2], but as Canvas gets more widespread and Hardware acceleration by default, these multiple renderers may not be that helpful. On the other hand, how long until then?
[1] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/easeljs/renderer/...
[2] https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/
In CAAT a JavaScript animation toolkitSeems nice. But would love ot know it compares to Three.js[1]
[1] https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/
In J3D - javascript webGL engineThanks! I used Three.JS for the 3d rendering, Rails for the rest. Good idea on the click/drag UI, I'll think about that for v2!
Three.JS: https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/
In Show HN: Seattle Traffic Congestion Map, in 3dWebGL makes it really easy for anyone to start now: http://learningwebgl.com/blog/?page_id=1217?
You can also see the framework Three.Js[1], which Mr. Doob used/created on his Google Colabs[2]
[1] https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js
[2] http://www.ro.me/tech/
In Quake 2 Source Code ReviewSome of the other examples are pretty impressive too: https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js
In Realistic Skin Rendering in WebGLIf you haven't checked out three.js yet, you should. Mr. Doob really knows his 3D and makes it really easy to draw cool stuff. http://github.com/mrdoob/three.js -- there's examples there.
In WebGL metaball playgrounddon't know about 3d/canvas in paper.js, but you should check out three.js, which does do 3d on canvas: https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/
In Paper.js — The Swiss Army Knife of Vector Graphics ScriptingHere, see MS security at stake here https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/ .
In Chrome dev on WebGL security and Microsoft bullshitWhen I say "in most situations" my implication is that for most 3D applications in the browser such low level interaction with the 3D API is not necessary. Most people building things with WebGL in the future will not be working with WebGL directly, but through an abstraction layer like three.js[1]. This could easily be extended to use Flash as an alternate renderer (say, for people running IE).
[1] https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/
In HW accelerated WebGL fallback using JavaThree.js - Javascript 3D Engine
43 points · Open discussion