Deck.gl: Further documentation needed

[mhoangvslev]

I'd like to see more explicit and perhaps more complete documentation:

• How to start section (how to create scene, add camera, mesh, material, etc.)
• Something like Javadoc for every element of the code.

I am looking for something like three.js

[ibgreen]

@mhoangslev

This is great feedback - we are very interested in improving the docs.

That said, we already have

• a getting started section
• detailed API reference
• interactive layer documentation

(how to create scene, add camera, mesh, material, etc.)

Note that deck.gl does not have a scenegraph system like THREE.js, and also deck.gl does not have mesh and material concepts. Each layer's shaders determine how that layer is rendered.

Instead, you compose your visuals using deck.gl layers, instead of using THREE.Mesh:es, so your "scene" is the list of layers you pass in.

Cameras correspond pretty closely to Viewports in deck.gl . Often the app doesn't have to create viewports (deck.gl coordinates with the mapbox map and automatically generates a synchronized viewport). There are examples like the examples/plot that shows how to create custom viewports. This is an area we are improving for the next release.

I'm now thinking that a section in the docs explaining deck.gl to programmers coming from a THREE.js background could be good approach?

[howtimeflies0]

Thanks @ibgreen for replying.

I'm now thinking that a section in the docs explaining deck.gl to programmers coming from a THREE.js background could be good approach?

This is a good idea. But we probably need to emphasize there that deck.gl is not really on the same abstraction level as THREE.js. luma.gl is more of that.

[mhoangvslev]

Thanks @ibgreen for your reply.

Now I understand more about how deck.gl works.
It would be really nice if you can centralize all documentations in one place: luma.gl documents will be mixed with deck.gl documents and a filter to improve searching experience would be nice.

[ibgreen]

It would be really nice if you can centralize all documentations in one place: luma.gl documents will be mixed with deck.gl documents and a filter to improve searching experience would be nice.

Thanks for your feedback, much appreciated, and agreed!

These changes will take some work though, so I have added requests for doc search and better integration with luma.gl docs to our v4 feedback tracker task - it will have more visibility there as we use that tracker to plan for coming releases.

Closing this for now.

[mootari]

I'm now thinking that a section in the docs explaining deck.gl to programmers coming from a THREE.js background could be good approach?

That is an excellent idea. I imagine that even a high level overview of how three.js concepts translate to deck.gl (or not) would be a great starting point.