How Can You Use DirectX in a Webpage?

Question

I am trying to figure out how to put even the simplest DirectX application on a web page. I'm trying to use Tutorial 3 from the DirectX SDK. I am using a UserControl object, however I don't know how to, or if you can, use this object in the same way as they use a Windows Form in the tutorial. After all you can't embed a form object in a webpage can you? I put the Main code from the form in the Initialization funciton for the Control, and got rid of code for Esc to exit and on resize and all that, compiled it as a DLL (Windows Class Library). Still I don't know if there is any sort of message loop for UserControls like there is for Forms, or what I would have to do to use DirectX in a webpage period. Maybe there is a way to embed a form in a webpage, or maybe I have to use a UserControl with a timer object or something. If anyone has any suggestions I would like to hear them. It seems to me that you need to use an application to use DirectX, but a UserControl can't be an Application right? I'm sure someone knows what it is I need to know. By the way, the reason I want to embed a DirectX Application in a webpage is because I have written some code to render 3D bitmaps, and I want to make it my desktop background, silly reason I know but they are awesome bitmaps custom 3D iterative fractal density plots that I've made. I might post the results of this if I can ever get it in a webpage!

Mykonine · Answer

In that case when you initialize the Direct3D Device instead of providing a form object provide a System.Windows.Forms.Control object. Direct3D will then render in the client area of the control. Beyond that point it behaves identically to a Device initialized with a Form object.

andrewwgraff · Answer

MyKonian I don't mean to be rude but you aren't being very helpful. It seems as though you might know how to use DirectX in a UserControl such that it could be placed on a web page but you aren't saying anything other than it is simple or easy. Otherwise you are just downgrading my choice of platforms I know that what I want to do is best done with DirectX seeing as I want to use hardware accelerated features of my Graphics card I don't want to use software to render my images they are going to be 400x400x400 3D Bitmaps with transparency I'll be using 400 textured planes and a 400x400x400 8-Bit Alpha 3D Texture. Even that might need to be downsized depending on how well that color format is supported I haven't even tried it yet I'm gettign hung up tryign to get this embedded in a web page. Then again a site where a Top 25 poster only needs 124 posts one has to wonder how useful it would be anyway. Now yes I am using a UserControl class in a Windows Class Library project so that I'll wind up with a DLL that I can use in a web page hosted via IIS. I have an archive of the DirectX SDK Tutorial that I'm trying to model in my UserControl my attempt at doing so as well as a working UserControl that simply displays the time in a label. I'm tryign to use a Timer just as I did with the clock control only to render each frame. In this case a frame is nothing more than a blue background because all the Tutorial does is initialize DirectX. If you would like to see my attempt to merge these two code samples into my DirectXUserControl I can e-mail it to you or I will upload the archive to geocities. I suppose in the meantime I can work on actually making the code to texture the 3D bitmap slices. Like I said I'll keep everyone updated as to the progress of this project of mine I'm sure many people would like to have a 3D Interactive Desktop image. Too bad you can't determine normals and all those nice features that make rendering a real 3D object from a 3D dataset but I know it will still look nice. So please help if you will! I've uploaded the archive of projects to http://www.geocities.com/graffsoft/ I know I sound scatterbrained and I probably am but I would really like to see this project of mine to completion I just don't know how to use DirectX in a UserControl to be embeded in a web page so once again thanks for any help help being the key not criticism or statements of obvious things like how it's a waste of resources or how software would be slow if it's detailed I mean come on some things don't need to be said. Once again check out the code at http://www.geocities.com/graffsoft/

Mykonine · Answer

I'm working off the assumption that you are using a System.Windows.Forms.Control for this job. If that's the case you can easily initiate Direct3D to that control. If you're using the System.Web.Control (or something like that) you won't be able to use managed code at least not the interface that's provided in 9.0c. Quite frankly I think you should try using Java or Flash for this job instead. Java might be on the slow side if the image is very detailed and has transparency etc. though.

andrewwgraff · Answer

Well to me it wouldn't be wasting processing power because that was the purpose. I want to have it rotating a 3D bitmap or generating a volume dynamically. Animation man! When it's visible I want to see it I can not render while the control is not visible so it's not a problem at all. I was just wondering if someone might be able to help be figure out how to initialize a Direct3D device that could then be embedded in a web page. I simply don't know where things need to be in order to do this properly. I would have asked this in a Windows Forms forum but DirectX seemed more appropriate at the time. Even if someone knows of a simple example that uses DirectX in a web page I would appreciate if you could post a link. Thanks for any help.

Mykonine · Answer

UserControls can be used with DirectX. However I highly recommend against using DirectX for your background because it requires low level control of your graphics hardware; DirectX isn't meant to be an image renderer for a desktop background. It's supposed to be a rasterizer used for foreground applications that require an optimized graphics engine. Instead try making your own renderer in Java (rendering math isn't very complicated) or C# using their drawing libraries. All in all dynamically generating a 1024x768 background is going to be wasting a lot of unecessary processing power