Some pragmatic notes on CSS3 matrix3d transforms

The CSS 2D [1] and 3D [2] Transforms Modules specify that browsers should expose an implementation of the CSSMatrix interface; unfortunately, only WebKit does this at the moment. However, since that's also the only browser in which the CSS 3D Transforms Module is implemented, it doesn't really matter too much yet. WebKitCSSMatrix [3] provides most of the low-level code you'll want to generate 3D transforms, including the fundamental multiply and inverse methods, along with convenience methods for scaling, translating, rotating elements around the x, y and z axes and rotating around arbitrary (three-dimensional) vectors.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-2d-transforms/" rel="nofollow">http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-2d-transforms/</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-3d-transforms/" rel="nofollow">http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-3d-transforms/</a><p>[3] <a href="http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/documentation/AudioVideo/Reference/WebKitCSSMatrixClassReference/WebKitCSSMatrix/WebKitCSSMatrix.html" rel="nofollow">http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/documentation/Audi...</a>

The 3d transforms in webkit are pretty neat. In fact, I played about with generating 3d transforms using data from Blender a while back ( <a href="http://github.com/jamesu/csstransformexport/" rel="nofollow">http://github.com/jamesu/csstransformexport/</a> ), with some success.<p>Still, needs more browser support.

I don't know... You don't need to be a math god at all. It's basic linear alg. I guess lin alg isn't required in CS?

Cool shit..

thanks for sharing the info

like the style of it ;)

I don't think it's such a great thing that the freshmen linear transforms for 3d manipulation are finding their way into the top-most level of the web stack(Javascript + CSS)<p>These transforms are already built into the the lowest level in the video hardware and accessed directly through specialized drivers.<p>While the imaginative side of me wants nothing more than to see web designers go buckwild with 3d, the engineer side of me want to congratulate everyone on slowing down the web even more.