hdr-canvas

This module contains a collection of functions and classes to work with the HDR support for HTML canvas elements in chromium based (like Chrome, Edge, Opera and Brave) browsers.

This should only be considered as proof of concept or alpha code, don't use it in production environments!

Even if the display of HDR images works, the HDR support for the canvas element needs the browser flag enable-experimental-web-platform-features to be enabled. For example, open chrome://flags#enable-experimental-web-platform-features in Chrome to activate it.

Especially operations on the ImageData arrays are not optimized, e.g. quite slow.

Feature detection

Import the required function(s):

import { checkHDR, checkHDRCanvas } from "hdr-canvas";

Examples checkHDRCanvas()

The functions return true if HDR is supported, example:

const canvas = document.getElementById("canvas");
if (checkHDRCanvas()) {
  canvas.configureHighDynamicRange({ mode: "extended" });
} else {
  console.debug("hdr not supported");
  return;
}

This can be useful to add a warning (using the fillText() method) to the canvas if it doesn't support HDR content.

Example checkHDRCanvas()

if (checkHDRCanvas()) {
  hdrCanvas.innerText = "HDR Canvas are supported";
  hdrCanvas.style.color = "green";
} else {
  hdrCanvas.innerText = "HDR Canvas are not supported";
  hdrCanvas.style.color = "red";
}

Canvas

Note: Currently the Chrome flag enable-experimental-web-platform-features needs to be enabled to have HDR support for the canvas element. You need to tell your visitors about that.

The HDR canvas support is activated by initializing a canvas context using the following snippet:

const colorSpace = "rec2100-hlg";
canvas.configureHighDynamicRange({ mode: "extended" });
const ctx = canvas.getContext("2d", {
  colorSpace: colorSpace,
  pixelFormat: "float16"
});

Canvas setup

The snippet above is also available as function:

import { initHDRCanvas } from "hdr-canvas";

Implicit Canvas setup

It's now also possible to use a HDR enabled Canvas by wrapping the browser internal getContext() function, by calling defaultGetContextHDR().

import {defaultGetContextHDR, checkHDR, checkHDRCanvas} from 'hdr-canvas';

if (checkHDR() && checkHDRCanvas()) {
  defaultGetContextHDR();
  console.log('Enabled HDR Canvas');
}

Note: This example wraps the call to defaultGetContextHDR() into a check (checkHDR() && checkHDRCanvas()), because calling the function in a browser that isn't HDR-capable will break every subsequent call to getContext().

Resetting default HDR canvas

Use the method resetGetContext() to undo the changes by defaultGetContextHDR().

import {resetGetContext} from 'hdr-canvas';

resetGetContext();

Importing Uint16Image

Afterwards one can use ImageData with a float16 array, first the Uint16Image needs to be imported:

import { Uint16Image } from "hdr-canvas";

Example: Loading an image

This example assumes image to be a HTMLImageElement including an existing image.

const offscreen = new OffscreenCanvas(image.width, image.height);
const loadCtx = offscreen.getContext("2d");
loadCtx.drawImage(image, 0, 0);
const imData = loadCtx.getImageData(0, 0, image.width, image.height);
console.log(imData);

var hdrCanvas = document.createElement("canvas");
hdrCanvas.width = image.width;
hdrCanvas.height = image.height;

const rec210hglImage = Uint16Image.fromImageData(imData);

const ctx = initHDRCanvas(hdrCanvas);
ctx.putImageData(rec210hglImage.getImageData(), 0, 0);

Three.js WebGPU

Note: Make sure to have Three.js added as a dependency.

This is just a drop-in-replacement for the regular WebGPURenderer of Three.js.

import HDRWebGPURenderer from "hdr-canvas/three/HDRWebGPURenderer.js";

Note: Starting Three.js 167 the WebGPU renderer is the new default renderer. This has several consequences for the required imports. Use this import instead of the official one and if your using Vite don't provide an import map of resolver alias configuration.

import * as THREE from 'three/src/Three.js';

Use it as you'll do with a WebGPURenderer.

renderer = new HDRWebGPURenderer({ canvas: canvas, antialias: true });

Updating textures

Starting from Three.js version 167 you need to fix imported UHDR Textures, otherwise they will appear black:

model = gltf.scene;
model.traverse((element) => {
  if (element?.material?.type != undefined) {
    let targetMaterial = new THREE.MeshBasicMaterial();
    THREE.MeshBasicMaterial.prototype.copy.call(targetMaterial, element.material);
    element.material = targetMaterial;
  }
});
scene.add(model);

Compatibility

This currently doesn't work with Firefox, due to missing support for HDR and only partial WebGPU support. One can import WebGPU and use also a HDR check to guard from errors:

import WebGPU from 'hdr-canvas/three/WebGPU.js';

Only use the provided renderer if the browser supports WebGPU and HDR:

if (WebGPU.isAvailable() && checkHDRCanvas()) {
  renderer = new HDRWebGPURenderer({canvas: canvas, antialias: true});
} else {
  renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer({canvas: canvas, antialias: true});
}

Examples

All examples requires a Chromium based browser (like Chrome, Edge, Opera and Brave) and a HDR-enable monitor.

• Contrast enhancement for UV images using HDR
• HDR IIIF
• Ultraviolet Photogrammetry

---

TODO

The following things might be improved:

• Try to detect change of screen for HDR detection
• Improve speed
  • Provide WebWorker
• Documentation
  • Link to browser HDR support
  • Document Uint16Image