Boundary

This vignette demonstrates renderer capabilities in ggWebGL. The examples are renderer-generic: they exercise primitive payloads, interaction state, camera state, and widget controls without assigning scientific or package-specific meaning to the data.

The showcased paths are:

vectors layers for 2D and 3D arrow glyphs
stable point ids for brush and lasso selection callbacks
linked magnifier metadata for brush-driven local zoom views
timeline metadata for frame-filtered rendering
opt-in 3D camera options for point, line, and vector layers
first-class structured-grid surface payloads and arbitrary mesh payloads

The live widgets are sourced from future_work_vector_field_demo(), future_work_selection_demo(), future_work_timeline_demo(), future_work_3d_camera_demo(), and future_work_mesh_surface_demo() in inst/examples/htmlwidget/future-work-gallery.R.

This article is intended for visual inspection and API orientation, not for performance claims. Fixed-rate interaction numbers must come from the benchmark scripts before they are used in package material.

Code examples are shown by default. Live WebGL widgets are disabled during CRAN, package checks, and CI. Rich local or pkgdown rendering requires GGWEBGL_EVAL_COVERAGE_VIGNETTE=true and GGWEBGL_EVAL_LIVE_WIDGETS=true.

Status. The capabilities in this vignette are exported and tested, but they are documented as Experimental: vectors, brush/lasso selection, linked magnifier metadata, timeline controls, 3D camera state, mesh/surface rendering, and compact transport may still evolve with the renderer contract.

Vector Arrows

Primitive contract. The vector demo sends x, y, optional z, xend, yend, optional zend, width, head_size, rgba, and stable ids through ggwebgl_layer_vectors().

What to inspect. Arrow shafts and heads should remain contained in the plot region during pan and zoom. The arrows are a renderer primitive, not a line-layer approximation.

renderer_capability_widgets$vectors

Brush and Lasso Selection

Primitive contract. The selection demo uses point payloads with stable id values and enables the widget-owned brush and lasso interaction modes.

What to inspect. Dragging a brush or lasso region should show the selection outline, highlight selected samples, update the selected-count status, and report selected point ids through Shiny-style events or an optional JavaScript callback when the widget is embedded in an application.

renderer_capability_widgets$selection

Linked Magnifying-Glass Zoom

Primitive contract. The linked zoom demo uses ggwebgl_magnify_region() with interactive = TRUE. The helper builds a two-panel renderer spec, stores the linkage in render$links$magnifiers, and enables a brush interaction on the source panel. The right panel starts with a viewport that exactly matches the selected rectangle on the left.

set.seed(2031)
linked_zoom_points <- data.frame(
  x = c(rnorm(900, -0.7, 0.28), rnorm(700, 0.85, 0.2), rnorm(600, 0.1, 0.18)),
  y = c(rnorm(900, 0.0, 0.2), rnorm(700, 0.55, 0.16), rnorm(600, -0.7, 0.12)),
  group = rep(c("global", "local", "bridge"), c(900, 700, 600))
)

linked_zoom_source <- ggwebgl_spec(
  layers = list(
    ggwebgl_layer_points(
      linked_zoom_points,
      x = "x",
      y = "y",
      colour = c("#2563eb", "#f97316", "#0f766e")[match(linked_zoom_points$group, c("global", "local", "bridge"))],
      alpha = 0.36,
      size = 2.2
    )
  ),
  labels = list(title = "Interactive linked zoom"),
  webgl = list(shader = "density_splat", interactions = character())
)

linked_zoom_spec <- ggwebgl_magnify_region(
  linked_zoom_source,
  region = list(x = c(0.48, 1.25), y = c(0.25, 0.82)),
  display = "panel",
  interactive = TRUE,
  global_label = "Global view",
  zoom_label = "Brush-driven zoom"
)

linked_zoom_spec$render$links$magnifiers[[1L]]

What to inspect. Drag a brush rectangle in the left panel. The rectangle is drawn in global coordinates, selected points are highlighted, and the right panel updates live to the brushed data-coordinate region. This is a renderer link, not a backend semantic selection.

ggWebGL(linked_zoom_spec, height = 430)

Timeline Controls

Primitive contract. The timeline demo attaches frame metadata to points and passes a ggwebgl_timeline() specification through ggwebgl_spec().

What to inspect. The play, scrub, speed, and reset controls should change which exact frame is visible without changing the underlying scene contract.

renderer_capability_widgets$timeline

Opt-In 3D Camera

Primitive contract. The 3D demo uses point, line, and vector layers with z coordinates and sets webgl$view with an explicit ggwebgl_view() camera controller and projection.

What to inspect. Dragging the scene should change the camera orientation while ordinary two-dimensional plots continue to use the existing pan and zoom behavior. Trackball examples use distinct rotation state rather than the orbit controller alias.

renderer_capability_widgets$camera_3d

Mesh and Surface Helpers

Primitive contract. The surface demo sends a regular height field as a first-class surface payload through ggwebgl_layer_surface(). Direct arbitrary triangle payloads remain the separate mesh contract through ggwebgl_layer_mesh().

What to inspect. The surface is rendered as indexed triangle geometry with generated normals, Lambert material metadata, and an optional wireframe overlay. Unstructured meshes use the separate indexed mesh path with scalar colouring, wireframe edges, and renderer-owned face/vertex picking ids. Raster fields remain raster fields; they are not silently treated as surfaces.

renderer_capability_widgets$mesh_surface

Experiment with Renderer Capabilities