Mobile page

CesiumJS
1

Since things are starting to look much better for WebGL on Android, can someone(s) please update our Mobile page - https://github.com/AnalyticalGraphicsInc/cesium/wiki/Mobile-Details

Thanks,

Patrick

2

Also, the state of WebGL on Android, including Chrome beta, would make a great blog post that would probably get some attention. Let me know if you are interested in writing it.

Patrick

3

I thought about doing this yesterday, but then it occurred to me; is there a reason we shouldn’t just write up mobile issues in the Cesium GitHub issue tracker? Why keep them separate? While I think we should certainly have a good answer in the FAQ regarding mobile devices, I’m not sure we need a whole wiki page dedicated to it. I guess part of my motivation for this is not to treat mobile devices as “special” the plan is to support them just like we support every other device/OS that runs WebGL.

Of course if we decide a mobile page tracking issues and support is a good idea, then I’d be happy to work with Ed to update it. The hard part is keeping it updated.

4

Certainly if there are mobile issues on a platform we intend to support (currently Chrome Beta & Firefox stable for Android), then yes those issues should go in the normal issue tracker and be handled like any other.

That said, the wiki has mobile roadmap items, and a list of mobile debugging systems (which can be hard to find and use), and generally a list of platforms and browsers that we know do work or not intended to work (which should perhaps be at a much coarser level than what’s there now). For example, we’re not going to open an issue that Cesium is incompatible with stock non-WebGL-enabled iOS, we need a place to offer links to known iOS WebGL-enable workarounds, maybe with links to any Cesium iOS-related issues that crop up when those workarounds are in use. Likewise I don’t think we should open issues for compatibility with Opera, Dolphin etc. There are dozens of mobile browsers, and we only know that we support two thus far. So I think there are plenty of reasons to keep the page. My fault that it got out of date. I’ll let Matt take first crack at updating it, and fill in anything I’m able to find if he missed.

–Ed.

5

I think a mobile wiki page is very helpful, and writing issues would be less so, because:

  • WebGL on mobile devices is immature. Many problems on mobile devices are not a result of Cesium bugs but in bugs in the device’s drivers or in the browser.

  • We have Cesium Viewer running on a bunch of Android devices at this point, but calling Cesium supported on mobile is a big stretch. It’s experimental at best, and lots of things don’t work. Worse, we haven’t really even tried to take stock of what works and what doesn’t.

Of course, for known Cesium problems (imagery artifacts due to lack of fragment shader precision for mercator reprojection, for example), it’s reasonable to write issues. For general keeping stock of what works, what you need to do to even get to the point of semi-working (such as enabling WebGL in Chrome Beta), and what devices we’ve tried, the wiki is perfect.

I’ll update it since I’ve been doing some mobile work lately. Matt and Ed and whoever else can add anything I missed.

Kevin

6

Sounds good to me. One recommendation I would make is that we separate out status/support based on graphics chip, and maybe list some examples of devices for that chip (and instructions on going to chrome://gpu to find out what a phone has). Right now it’s split up by phone model, which is much less useful since there are so many.

7

I took a first stab at it. Edit at will. Also, I wasn’t sure if Cesium is currently working on the Xoom, and I don’t know what GPU it has, so I didn’t add that one yet.

8

Awesome, I like the new structure and that it doesn’t try and do “too much” Seems to be just the right about of information. I made a few tweaks but other than that, I’m happy with it.

9

Looks good. Is the state of Cesium on Android worth a blog post at this point?

Patrick

10

Maybe, but doing it properly would take some research. Which features work and which don’t work? Are they driver bugs, browser bugs, or Cesium bugs? Ideally we’d report driver and browser bugs to the right folks. I’m going to try to stay focused on terrain for now. If someone else has some bandwidth (even someone outside the core Cesium committers!) I fully support the effort, though.