Practical GPU Graphics with wgpu-py and Python

Jack Xu

Jun 2022 · UniCAD

About this ebook

Wgpu-py is the next-generation Python graphics API and future standard for both native devices and the web, aiming to provide modern 3D graphics and computation capabilities with the GPU acceleration. This book provides all the tools you need to help you create advanced 3D graphics and GPU computing on native devices with this new wgpu-py API.

The book starts by taking you through the wgpu-py development environment for building the wgpu-py apps and then shows you the Python and wgpu-py basics, shader programs, GPU buffers, and rendering pipelines. Next, you will learn how to create primitives and simple objects in wgpu-py. As you progress through the chapters, you will get to grips with advanced wgpu-py topics, including 3D transformation, lighting calculation, colormaps, and textures. At the same time, you will learn how to create advanced 3D wgpu-py objects, including various 3D wireframes, 3D shapes, simple and parametric 3D surfaces with colormaps and textures, as well as beautiful fractal images described by complex functions. You will also explore new wgpu features, such as compute shader and storage buffer, and how to use them to simulate large particle systems. In addition, this book will introduce the pygfx render engine that is based on wgpu-py, and show you how to use its built-in primitives to create various 3D objects. You will also learn how to build custom objects and geometries in pygfx.

By the end of this book, you will have the skill you need to build your own GPU-accelerated graphics and computing on both native devices and the web with the wgpu-py API.