Assemblyscript: is graphics rendering possible?

[goldenratio]

Hi,

I am looking to render graphics in canvas element via WASM, instead of JavaScript. Is this possible with AssemblyScript?

For example, in game of life demo - rendering is done via javascript, is it possible to move it to assembly code?

[ColinEberhardt]

No, WebAssembly does not have direct DOM access. The only way to render to canvas, or update any HTML is via importing JavaScript functions into your wasm module.

[goldenratio]

clear now thanks.

[jiyinyiyong]

Does WebAssembly have Canvas API support?

[ColinEberhardt]

No, it doesn’t have support directly. All WebAssembly can do is perform computations, reading and writing to memory. For everything else, you’ll need to import JavaScript functions that provide an interface into DOM / canvas etc ...

[dcodeIO]

Things like these will become more efficient once host-bindings lands. From an AssemblyScript point of view, this could then look like in this String experiment, being part of stdlib, so Web-APIs "just work".

[goldenratio]

what about webgl? can we use that for rendering in WASM. Recently I have been looking into rust lang. It seems to be possible.
Related RUST + GL + WASM repo https://github.com/kvark/wasm-triangle
Some more info on reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/rust_gamedev/comments/7mc7yk/is_there_any_wasm_friendly_2d_rendering_lib/drto3p9/

[dcodeIO]

It's just like with the game of life example: They are importing their own helpers to make it possible. You can do the same in AS.

[goldenratio]

@dcodeIO thanks! :) you made it really clear for me.