WebGL visual programming editor cables.gl is now open source

Cables is an incredibly powerful tool with a fairly low learning curve. I couldn't have done what I did with my personal website[1] (sorry, mobile optimized!) if I was working with WebGL directly, especially not in the 3 days it took me to build and deploy with no prior experience.

If you're a interested in experimenting with creative stuff without the traditionally high barrier of entry, I highly recommend cables and the Decode.gl tutorial series[2].

Cables is an exceptionally versatile and user-friendly tool, especially for those new to creative coding. It allowed me to create my personal website[1] (sorry doesn't work on mobile) in just three days, despite having no prior experience. Achieving the same results using WebGL directly would have been significantly more challenging and time-consuming.

For anyone interested in exploring creative digital projects without facing the typically steep learning curve, I strongly suggest giving Cables a try.

Additionally, the Decode.gl[2] tutorial series is extremely high quality

[1] https://zetaphor.com [2] https://decode.gl/

Is this essentially Quartz Composer, but in the browser? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_Composer

I was always amazed at how sophisticated QC was, and also saddened when it was abandoned by Apple...

I'm so happy every time I see the demoscene on HN's front page. Hi pandur!

This reminded me of another project: https://nodes.io. Apparently it was inspired by cables.gl

What‘s the license?

GitHub: https://github.com/cables-gl/cables

Really cool project, love to see things that touch web tech, VPLs, and creative programming. Could not find repo from the website on mobile, would love to see it in the footer or in the CTA.

What about Web GPU, does cables support that?

This looks really cool, but I came away with some questions.

- How does this differ from say blender's geometry/shader nodes? Aside from operating environment.

- How much of webgl does this encompass? Do you control the full render graph? Or is it just one pass, or what?

I've been interested in learning modern graphics programming, but playing around with low level gl/vk code seemed like it'd be too slow to figure out the high level concepts. I was hoping I'd find a visual editor somewhere.

Just a heads up, this site (cables.gl) can reliably crash my browser (Firefox 128.0.3 - Linux) completely so that my only options are to quit the browser or restart it.

Breaks Safari on mobile as soon as the top video loads. At least the back button works but scrolling or any other gesture doesn't...

Great stuff, lovely this is open now.

Cables is absolutely fantastic. I used it personally for an art project, as well as was involved with a commerical AR experience which used cables to run elaborate, fully interactive 3d scenes in a normal browser, on mobile. As with other node based languages (e.g. vvvv, max/msp), you edit your code while it's running, so you directly see what you're doing without constantly switching interfaces. And in the end it generates a js file you can just embed in an iframe. Honestly, no idea why this is not more widely used, huge fan!

Wow this looks really nice. Great work and thanks.

Nice to have an open-source alternative to TouchDesigner! Hope the transition to Cables isn't too hard.

So... would this let me build GLSL shaders visually, rather than by code trial and error?