History of Three.js

Three.js is a popular JavaScript library and API used to create and display 3D computer graphics in web browsers using WebGL. It was first released in April 2010 on GitHub by Ricardo Cabello, inspired by his involvement with the demoscene in the early 2000s. The code was originally written in ActionScript for Adobe Flash but later used JavaScript in 2009. Cabello saw JavaScript as a better choice due to its greater platform independence and the fact that applications written in JavaScript would not need to be compiled by a developer beforehand, so he shifted away from ActionScript.

Many contributions were made to the site by not just Cabello with the API design, CanvasRenderer, SVGRenderer, and merging the commits by various contributions into the project. But with Paul Burt who implement the new rendering technology into Three.Js. There was also Branislav Uličný who joined in early 2010 and contributed to the materials, shaders, and post-processing of the site. Joshua Koo also made contributions to the site in geometry generation. Three.js has become a popular tool for creating GPU-accelerated 3D animations for websites without relying on proprietary browser plugins with over 1700 contributors on GitHub.