WWT 2022 Release Notes: WWT WebGL Engine
The “WebGL engine” is the core codebase behind all WWT-powered web applications. It implements the WWT rendering engine in a reusable JavaScript/TypeScript package.
Availability as NPM Package
Historically, the WWT WebGL engine has had primitive support for reuse in applications. In particular, one could reference wwtsdk.js in a <script> tag and try to make do from there. WWT 2022 brings this setup into the 21st century, now providing the engine as a reusable NPM package, @wwtelescope/engine. You can now include WWT in JavaScript projects like any other package, opening up the use of the entire modern web development ecosystem.
TypeScript API and Documentation
The WWT WebGL engine now also provides TypeScript definitions for the majority of its API. Along with the greater reliability that comes with TypeScript, there is now also organized API documentation for many of the engine interfaces as well. While plain JavaScript uses of the engine API still work, we strongly recommend use of the TypeScript API.
For modern web applications powered by WWT, we recommend using the new Vue/Vue engine interface to gain a whole level of development infrastructure above and beyond that provided by the basic engine package.
New Support for HiPS Datasets
In tandem with the Windows client, the WWT 2022 WebGL engine adds support for HiPS datasets and catalogs.
New Support for Tiled FITS Datasets
WWT 2022 also adds support for rendering arbitrarily large FITS datasets using a new “tiled” FITS data standard that follows the same semantics as WWT’s “study” framework. This capability is not yet available in the Windows client. FITS rendering is also now GL-accelerated if the user’s browser supports WebGL 2.
New Support for HTTPS
The WebGL engine now fully supports HTTPS environments.
New URL Management Framework
The engine now supports a more flexible framework for defining different kinds of URLs and rewriting them on-the-fly. In practice, this means that it’s now possible to beta-test updates to various built-in data files by configuring where the engine looks for them.
Bugfixes and Features
The WWT 2022 WebGL engine includes, many, many, many additional bugfixes and internal improvements not mentioned here. See the detailed WWT 2022 components list for links to developer resources such as code repositories and changelogs.