With the launch of its ANGLE graphics project, Google will provide enhanced 3D graphics without the need for users to download any additional drivers. ANGLE stands for Almost Native Graphics Layer Engine. Its goal is to provide a WebGL OpenGL ES 2.0 API (application Programming Interface) that works over the Microsoft DirectX9.0c API.

ANGLE is available under the BSD license and will allow Chrome to run WebGL content on Windows computers without having to use OpenGL drivers.

WebGL has no problems running on the MAC OS X or Linux machines, but windows has always been a problem because Window’s most graphic intensive applications use Microsoft Direct 3D APIs and rarely have OpenGl drivers available which means they can’t render WebGL content. Microsoft Direct3D API is also the basis for the Xbox 360.

According to Henry Bridge, the project manager, “Even if they have powerful graphics hardware many Windows machines can’t render WebGL content because they don’t have the necessary OpenGL drivers installed… ANGLE should make it simpler to prototype these applications on Windows and also gives developers new options for deploying production versions of their code to the desktop.”

What that means for developers is that they can work on application for mobile devices using hardware accelerated 3D graphics in web pages. Firefox, Opera and Safari have already begun using a very simple form of WebGL technology. Now Microsoft seems to be on board.

Hopefully, developers within the graphics community will join in with the ANGLE program to provide better graphic hardware acceleration to users and improve the quality of graphics on all interfaces.