The Khronos Group today released the final WebGL 1.0 specification to enable hardware-accelerated 3D graphics in HTML5 Web browsers without the need for plug-ins.  WebGL defines a JavaScript binding to OpenGL ES 2.0 to allow rich 3D graphics within a browser on any platform supporting the industry-standard OpenGL or OpenGL ES graphics APIs.  WebGL has the support of major silicon and browser vendors including Apple, Google, Mozilla and Opera with multiple browsers already shipping with WebGL implementations including the beta releases for Mozilla Firefox 4.0, all channels of Google Chrome 9.0, an Opera preview build, and Apple Mac OS Safari nightly builds.

WebGL will allow 3D games with pixel shaders and other modern visual effects to work in the browser without need of plug-ins. As it gives developers the ability to directly access OpenGL –class graphics directly from JavaScript, and freely mix 3D with other HTML content.

"WebGL enables an entire new class of applications on the web.  Being able to take advantage of first-class 3D hardware acceleration in a browser on both desktop and mobile allows web developers to create compelling and immersive experiences for their users," said Vlad Vuki?evi? of Mozilla and chair of the WebGL Working Group.

The royalty-free WebGL 1.0 specifications are available today and adopted by Apple, Google, Mozilla and Opera. In addition to the WebGL specification, Khronos has created a comprehensive WebGL test suite that can be downloaded free of charge.  Implementers of WebGL capable browsers can run the test suite and upload their passing test results in order be able to designate their implementations as conformant to the WebGL specification. Checkout the WebGL demo running on Nokia N900 in Firefox browser.