The 3D Pipeline¶

Generate, filter, and render volumetric fields — a true 3D counterpart to the 2D synth/filter/render chain, on both the WebGL2 and WebGPU backends.

A 3D chain has the same shape as a 2D one: a generator produces a field, zero or more filters transform it, and a renderer turns it into pixels. The difference is that every intermediate value is a volume rather than an image.

search synth3d, filter3d, render

noise3d(volumeSize: x64)
  .palette3d(index: palette.brushedMetal)
  .render3d()
  .write(o0)

render(o0)

volumeSize (on the generator) sets the volume resolution: x16, x32, x64, or x128 (16³ … 128³). Downstream effects inherit it automatically.

Generators (synth3d)¶

Volume generators live in the synth3d namespace: noise3d, cell3d, fractal3d, shape3d, cellularAutomata3d, reactionDiffusion3d, and flythrough3d. Each one’s parameters are documented in the Effect Reference.

Volumetric filters (filter3d)¶

Filters in the filter3d namespace transform a volume and pass it on:

palette3d — recolors the field per voxel with the same 55 cosine palettes and RGB/HSV/OkLab colorspace modes as the 2D palette filter.
flow3d — an agent-based 3D flow field that deposits trails through the volume.

Recoloring filters follow a shared pattern: they change a voxel’s color while passing its shape (geometry) through untouched, so any downstream renderer sees the same surface.

Renderers¶

A renderer consumes the volume and produces the frame:

Renderer	Output
`render3d`	Universal raymarcher: smooth `isosurface` mode (trilinear interpolation with bisection refinement) or `voxel` mode (DDA traversal with flat face shading)
`renderLit3d`	Lit variant of `render3d`
`renderCubemapSurface` / `renderCubemap3d`	Six seamless cube faces for skyboxes and planetary surfaces — see the Cubemaps guide