[Enhancement] 3D graphics bindings

[deviloper]

Summary

I make .net tools for 3D data processing and rendering and I found .Net lacks of a low level engine to make custom 3D applications for architecture and engineering.

I tried to embed Urho3D and some WPF toolkits but they are too high-level and OS specific.

Unity 3D is another possible choice but it is not embeddable, its workspaces merge 3D models and code in a unmaintainable way and it hasn't a 2D UI library.

So what about to include in MAUI something like a webgl engine just to enable 3D graphics to run in. NET on all platforms?

API Changes

The 3D environment could be implemented in a specific control within its namespace (System.MAUI.GL)

Intended Use Case

Move applications for architecture, design and engineering to .NET 6.

[Happypig375]

UrhoSharp is not platform-specific. Like SkiaSharp, it targets .NET Standard 2.0 and is cross-platform.

[deviloper]

UrhoSharp is not platform-specific. Like SkiaSharp, it targets .NET Standard 2.0 and is cross-platform.

Yes, urhosharp is a cross-platform engine, but I didn't find an access to low level graphics to render models with custom shaders.

Game engines also use y-up coordinate systems and sometimes clockwise rotations and this is not common in engineering.

WebGL instead is highly customizable and low level, so a framework like three.js could unlock many features in a .NET environment.

[charlesroddie]

This is a request for low level cross-platform dot net 3d graphics.

MAUI is not the right place for this as you would want this to work across all .Net UI projects not just MAUI.

Also WebGL is not suitable as that is for web.

I don't use 3D graphics but from a quick search the project that would come closest to meeting your needs is OpenTK. Is there a reason you don't mention this?

[deviloper]

@charlesroddie thank you for the response.

I tried many engines and libraries, but I didn't find a good solution in .NET (C++ and JS have the best solutions at the moment).

I mentioned webgl as an example because it's a good abstraction on both hardware and graphics libraries (for cross platform applications, even if run in a webview), and at the same time it gives the developer the possibility to work on shaders and define custom materials with parameters.

I know OpenTK and it has been a good project for. NET Framework.

About cross-platform I don't think it's a good solution because it lays on OpenGL and it could be dropped on some devices in future (see Metal on Mac). Furthermore OpenTK is a bit "slow" in following .NET releases (I'm still waiting for a stable version which is compatible with .NET Core) and it's not supported by Microsoft.

Maybe the best way to add 3D Graphics in. NET could be to add an internal low level engine with bindings for each UI framework.

This would make. NET suitable for many cross platform applications and increase its adoption through new markets.

[Agredo]

Did you try Stride3D or Wave Engine? This both are defintley the best .Net Engines out there. Stride3D full Open Source and MIT wave Engine is closed source but royality free. Both are Crossplatform via Xmarin.

[charlesroddie]

@deviloper So you are looking for an .net abstraction layer that can deploy to multiple low level frameworks. I agree that this would be very good for cross-platform development, and while it wouldn't be in Maui in a strict sense, it would be a similar/allied project.

Have you tried https://github.com/mellinoe/veldrid ?

Veldrid is a cross-platform, graphics API-agnostic rendering and compute library for .NET. It provides a powerful, unified interface to a system's GPU and includes more advanced features than any other .NET library. Unlike other platform- or vendor-specific technologies, Veldrid can be used to create high-performance 3D applications that are truly portable.

Supported backends: Direct3D 11, Vulkan, Metal, OpenGL 3, OpenGL ES 3

[BreyerW]

@deviloper also consider Silk.NET they include bindings to assimp for mesh loading besides bindings to low lvl graphic api

[Agredo]

What I wish is a View like in the following video: I planned to create a Custom Control in Stride3D. Currently they have a bug not building for iOS and Android (currently a beta version). They are using Xamarin.iOS/Xamrin.Android for mobile crossplatform this would make it really easy to build a custom renderer.

Ever.wonders.how.easy.it.is.to.embed.a.whole.game.inside.an.UWP.App_.This.works.for.Xamarin.iOS.an.mp4

Then there is Wave Engine but currently this is not that easy like it is with Stride3D (https://github.com/stride3d/stride). But a View Like this and interactable entities (Or in Unity Entities = GameObjects) would be perfect for MAUI!!

[charlesroddie]

I gather:

• Veldrid: good for low level 3d code which integrates with .Net and abstracts from 3d frameworks.
• WaveEngine: higher level than Veldrid, with a more type-safe API.
• Silk.net: lower level than veldrid, targeting individual frameworks rather than having a common API.
• Stride: "game engine" so not suitable for the non-gaming tasks that this thread is about.

Based on this I think WaveEngine may be suitable for most MAUI non-game developers requiring 3D graphics.

[Agredo]

Why would you say stride is not as suitable like wave engine? I could not figure out big differences (I am not super deep into them) but as I said currently stride is much easier to implement in .Net applications than wave engine because entities are super easy to access and are customizable from code.
Biggest difference I currently see is the Mixed Reallity support in Wave Engine.

[charlesroddie]

"Stride Game Engine" suggests that Stride is a Game Engine. The features advertized are focused on gaming. I haven't investigated further - but if Stride minus the gaming features is a good 3D graphics layer then perhaps tell Stride that so it can market itself for that purpose?

[deviloper]

@charlesroddie It seems to be an interesting project, I will try it in next days, thank you!

[GeraudFabien]

MonoGame
stride
CocosSharp
Unity ($)
....

https://github.com/quozd/awesome-dotnet
https://github.com/microsoft/dotnet/blob/master/dotnet-developer-projects.md

There is other solution i believe it's a lot of work too much to be done from scratch here. But integrate with monogame or Unity should be intresting. But they use Mono so i don't know if it's possible.

[jcant0n]

Hi,

From the WaveEngine team we have published some examples on how to integrate our graphics engine with some UI technologies like SDL, WPF, UWP or Windows Forms here: https://github.com/WaveEngine/UIWindowSystemsDemo

More samples here too: https://github.com/WaveEngine/Samples

The API is ready to use mutiple displays in a single WPF application, because we need this to code our editor which is based on WPF.

We are following all the advances of .NET Maui too so as soon as Microsoft published an RC version we will publish new samples to show how to integrate WaveEngine with this kind of application working on different graphics APIs DX, Vulkan and Metal.
I will try to put the link in this thread as soon as we have it.

*Updated: We have already published a template to create project using WinUI 3, here is a simple demo: https://github.com/WaveEngine/UIWindowSystemsDemo

[Agredo]

Hi,

From the WaveEngine team we have published some examples on how to integrate our graphics engine with some UI technologies like SDL, WPF, UWP or Windows Forms here: https://github.com/WaveEngine/UIWindowSystemsDemo

More samples here too: https://github.com/WaveEngine/Samples

The API is ready to use mutiple displays in a single WPF application, because we need this to code our editor which is based on WPF.

We are following all the advances of .NET Maui too so as soon as Microsoft published an RC version we will publish new samples to show how to integrate WaveEngine with this kind of application working on different graphics APIs DX, Vulkan and Metal.
I will try to put the link in this thread as soon as we have it.

This works but https://github.com/stride3d/stride is defintley easier to integrate an engine as View into an app. Wave Engine is great but its currently a bit annoying to show a 3D view. For Stride you simply access all entities via Game.SceneSystem.SceneInstance.RootScene.Entities (a list of all entities you can manipulate - Thats it, its crazy simple) Here you can see an exemple by me.

Ever.wonders.how.easy.it.is.to.embed.a.whole.game.inside.an.UWP.App_.This.works.for.Xamarin.iOS.an.mp4

https://twitter.com/i/status/1390329096845107203

[alexleo123456]

may be you are looking for veldrid.support opengl,vulkan,metal,crossplatform ,you are welcome.

[Agredo]

What he looking for is stride3d (https://github.com/stride3d/stride) or wave engine.

[Xyncgas]

If it's an option you can make your own framework or use one available in javascript, you can do anything with MAUI, there is webview you can always use for a web experience, of course you still get things out of it by being able to use .NET RT for your web app

[xtuzy]

i migrate veldrid example to maui, see https://github.com/xtuzy/veldrid

[charlesroddie]

How is this going @xtuzy ? Any success?

[xtuzy]

i'm not a expert at 3d, i only try migrate veldrid xamarin example to maui. There are examples run success at android and windows, also have fail, i don't know why, if you are know 3d or veldrid, you can clone it.