A wise man once said "If you want to be a really good developer, be prepared for continuous learning" (Golo Roden).
Once again I'm looking into something new that I've never done before. This time I'm looking into WebGPU and STL files.
The goal of this series
I want to create a web renderer for STL files using WebGPU. How good this renderer becomes highly depends on how much time I find for writing and how well this series is received.
This series is also meant for you to follow me along as I learn new things. I'll try good hints for resources I found helpful along the way, but don't expect this to be a tutorial. The post probably will also include some mistakes at first, since I'm completely new to the topic.
How will this work?
When I find the time, I will post updates to this series with what I did, how I did it and where you can learn more. Easiest way to stay up to date is probably to follow me on social media to see when I drop a new post.
Also feel free to reach out to me if you found an issue or want to provide feedback. I usually keep my DMs open (even on Twitter when they allow me to).
I will start this series by first looking into how STL files work and how to parse them in JS, then we will write a small renderer using the canvas API before taking a look at WebGPU and I don't know yet where we'll go from there.
And now...
Have fun with the first post where I explain how STL files work.
I never worked with either of these ever before. I haven't even touched WebGL and have no experience in graphics programming, so really expect this to be a slow series as I learn in my free time about these massive topics.