[Webkit-unassigned] [Bug 43210] Open GL ES 2 backend for canvas 2d

Thu Jul 29 16:08:22 PDT 2010

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43210

--- Comment #5 from James Robinson <jamesr at chromium.org>  2010-07-29 16:08:22 PST ---
> When you say "OpenGL ES 2.0" do you mean OpenGL in general, or are you only interested in embedded devices? There are no ES 2.0 drivers for desktop machines that I know of.

The idea is to code things to OpenGL ES 2.0 and then have a glue layer for desktop GLs (when needed).  In Chrome we have such a shim layer (like Stephen said) but for other ports I think the only shim layer needed is a few #defines for functions that have different names between desktop GL and GL ES 2.0 since ES is essentially a subset of what has existed in desktop GL for a while now.

If it turns out that there is some feature that isn't possibly to easily use on widely deloyed desktop Open GL then we can just be careful to avoid it.  However, I think GL ES 2.0 should serve as a good lowest common denominator to code against.

> Perhaps this would be better phrased as "GPU-based Hardware Acceleration for Canvas"?

People may want to write a Direct2D or <insert accelerated graphics library here> backend for canvas.  That would probably be served better by a separate master bug.

> Of course that begs the question, why only for Canvas? Wouldn't all 2D rendering in WebKit benefit from hardware acceleration?

Yes, it certainly would.  However I think that's somewhat of a separate problem.  The most obvious difference is that canvas 2d is an immediate mode API whereas normal rendering of HTML or SVG content is inherently retained.  This means that the ideal design for hardware accelerated rendering in general might look different.

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