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title: Creating 3D text engine in the browser | daily.dev
description: A walkthrough of building a browser-based 3D text engine from scratch using only math and vanilla JavaScript — no WebGL, no external libraries. The engine...
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og:description: A walkthrough of building a browser-based 3D text engine from scratch using only math and vanilla JavaScript — no WebGL, no external libraries. The engine...
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# Creating 3D text engine in the browser

**[ITNEXT](https://daily.dev/sources/itnext)** · 4 min read · 48 upvotes · 5 comments

## Summary

A walkthrough of building a browser-based 3D text engine from scratch using only math and vanilla JavaScript — no WebGL, no external libraries. The engine represents letters as extruded 3D wireframes, applies rotation via sine/cosine, renders into an ASCII character framebuffer with a Z-buffer for depth testing, uses character gradients for shading, and implements near-plane clipping to prevent projection artifacts. The full render loop uses requestAnimationFrame and fits in a few hundred lines of code.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://itnext.io/creating-3d-text-engine-in-the-browser-7dd8fc294ac5>

## Community discussion

Top comments from developers on daily.dev.

**@dwcy** · 2 upvotes

> that's the coolest retro shit I seen!

**@kavi\_castelo** · 2 upvotes

> wow🤯

**@allinonetools** · 2 upvotes

> Really impressive to see 3D rendering done with just math and vanilla JS. Using a Z-buffer and ASCII shading without WebGL is a great way to understand how rendering actually works under the hood.

**@stuffthatspins** · 2 upvotes

> this is bad ass!

**@dulank** · 0 upvotes

> Coolest shit I've seen in a while

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---

Tags: [#webdev](https://daily.dev/tags/webdev), [#javascript](https://daily.dev/tags/javascript), [#3d](https://daily.dev/tags/3d)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/creating-3d-text-engine-in-the-browser-9zfk5d8hf)

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