Github is not going to support backend rendering of 3d files.

nmz787 · on April 9, 2013

Seems like the smart thing would be pushing rendering to the client. This is already done in real-time for coarse and simple models like PDB.

kanzure · on April 9, 2013

> smart thing would be pushing rendering to the client

They seem to be doing precisely that:

"This viewer is powered by Three.js and uses WebGL when available, but will fall back to the slower canvas renderer."

nickpinkston · on April 9, 2013

Yea, but good luck having a browser-based B-Rep kernel or some such. Seems like GrabCAD, etc. are doing back-end processing -> polygons in the browser using three.js, etc.

kanzure · on April 9, 2013

Shapesmith is also doing backend nurbs (OpenCASCADE + erlang server) with front-end rendering.

I think it would be possible to implement nurbs (or brep) in javascript, once there's an open source (and maintainable/legible) library that actually does nurbs intersection.

OpenNURBS doesn't count because Rhino has kept all the interesting bits to themselves. BRLCAD has had people from GSoC implement some of the remaining closed-source parts of the OpenNURBS library, so maybe they have had some recent progress on this front?

OpenCASCADE doesn't count because trying to extract just what you need is like trying to rewrite the multiple decades of software piled up in there..

Edit: Nick, didn't we have this exact conversation before in some HN comments like two years ago? I feel like we did and I feel bad for not remembering the url. Maybe this?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3320172

kanzure · on April 9, 2013

They also don't do backend testing, but there are still service hooks for it anyway.