webgl vs. 3rd party plugin (unity3d), best option in browser [closed]

Question

I have been tasked with rendering and manipulating 3d objects in the browser and really want a robust application. The research that I've done shows two major options here. I can use the new webgl tool in html5. Or I can use a browser plugin such as unity3d (i'm sure there are others and for the point of this question, are equivalent). (Are there any other options that I'm missing?) My needs for the application are fairly standard, however, these are the focal points:

(1) The most important part is the resolution of the scene. I want as many polygons/points as I can get. I want, hopefully, 1 million polygons/points, 10 million polygons/points, 50 million polygons/points? What is realistically possible?

(2) The scene will be largely static, I will load my scene and then I just want to navigate around it and explore that way. I don't need constant changes to my scene.

Weighing the pros and cons, I see the downside of webgl as not having IE support (yet). And using unity inconveniences the user by forcing them to install a plugin (which I view as a huge barrier). If you take those away, is there any performance difference between the two? Will one give me more polygons than the other? I would presume they are the same since they both have direct access to the same hardware on the machine.

Any experience or thoughts on this matter would be greatly appreciated ......

Answer 1

WebGL is perfectly capable of rendering lots and lots of geometry as long as you draw it intelligently. So is Unity. Polygon counts are going to be a pretty moot issue, especially if your scene is static.

What you really want to consider more than rendering speed is factors like tool chains and user accessibility. WebGL has a quickly growing community but not much in the way of mature tools. If you need commercial support maybe Unity would be better. WebGL also lacks IE support as you pointed out, but even on browsers that support it you may not be able to access it if your video card is blacklisted. That said, if for whatever reason you are determined to avoid plugins then your choice is already made, isn't it?

WebGL has an undeniable "geeky cool" factor to it, but that may be completely lost on your target audience. It's also worth considering that Unity is going to be fairly gaming centric, which may or may not be a good thing given your needs. WebGL is more general but lower level.

As far as other alternatives, Flash 11 has Stage3D, which I've heard is very capable, and Silverlight has Molehill, which I've heard next to nothing about (sorry!). Obviously both are plugin-centric, but if you're on the fence they're probably worth at least looking at.