3D Point Cloud with Javascript and Canvas

I was doing some stuff with 3D in Flash. And so I wondered wether sth similar might be achieved with pure HTML/Javascript. And yes, modern browsers (so not IE) can!

What I’ve done is this (a litte simplified):

  • Migrated my 3D engine I’ve written years ago from AS1 to Javascript
  • Extracted point cloud from Colada 3D object
  • Draw rectangles for every point to canvas

And that’s how it looks:



Should work on Safari, Firefox and Opera.

CSS Alternative to Left Float

I used to use float:left a lot for my layouts. But it can be a pain in the ass for several reasons – which of them the main may be that the surrounding box doesn’t surround it (so you’d have to come up with some stupid clearfloat-hacks).

Anyway, I recently discovered somewhere a great alternative (you can call it hack too, but then everything a little fancy that’s supposed to work with IE is a hack, isn’t it?).

So while until now I’d have something like this:

.inlinebox {
	float:  left;
	width: 49%;
	min-height: 100px;
}

the new method goes like this:

.inlinebox {
	display: -moz-inline-stack;
	display: inline-block;
	vertical-align: top;
	zoom: 1;
	*display: inline;
	width: 49%;
	min-height: 100px;
	_height: 100px;
}

That’s looks quite more complex. And it certainly is. But it works like a charm on all browsers I’ve tested (IE7, Safari, FF3). _height, zoom and *display are some crappy IE hacks obviously. The zoom attribute by the way is quite interesting, as it activates the hidden (IE only) CSS attribute hasLayout.

It also has some very nice benefits, like the alignement to the bottom…

Example

View Example

	<style type="text/css" media="screen">
		.codeexample span {
			background-color: #68B6FF;
			-webkit-box-reflect: below 1px -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(transparent), color-stop(0.8, transparent), to(rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.8)));
			-moz-border-radius: 5px;
			-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
			margin-right: 10px;
			margin-bottom: 40px;
			width: 140px;
			padding: 10px;
		}
		.inlinebox1 {
			display: block;
			float:  left;
			min-height: 32px;
		}
 
		.inlinebox2 {
			display: -moz-inline-stack;
			display: inline-block;
			vertical-align: bottom;
			zoom: 1;
			*display: inline;
			min-height: 32px;
			_height: 32px;
		}
 
	</style>
 
	<div class="codeexample">
		<h3>Float: left</h3>
		<span class="inlinebox1">Inlinebox</span>
		<span class="inlinebox1">Inlinebox</span>
		<span class="inlinebox1">Inlinebox Inlinebox Inlinebox Inlinebox Inlinebox Inlinebox</span>
		<span class="inlinebox1">Inlinebox</span>
		<span class="inlinebox1">Inlinebox</span>
		<span class="inlinebox1">Inlinebox</span>
		<span class="inlinebox1">Inlinebox</span>
 
		<h3 style="clear: both;">Inline Block</h3>
		<span class="inlinebox2">Inlinebox</span>
		<span class="inlinebox2">Inlinebox</span>
		<span class="inlinebox2">Inlinebox Inlinebox Inlinebox Inlinebox Inlinebox Inlinebox</span>
		<span class="inlinebox2">Inlinebox</span>
		<span class="inlinebox2">Inlinebox</span>
		<span class="inlinebox2">Inlinebox</span>
		<span class="inlinebox2">Inlinebox</span>
	</div>