Probably you’ve researched on _slack _and Github, and you have gone through the long list of pros and cons, but you still cannot tell for sure what would work for you.

Then, you will just pick one. In many cases, it probably does not matter that much. As all roads lead to Rome, right?

Tous les chemins mènent à Rome All Roads Lead to Rome (Movie 1949)

That was what I did. I was brave to pick up a new development tool before a deadline for a visualization project on the bird migration path.

How to Choose

If you may agree, this is not a decision based on perfect information.

Just a very quick background on the decision theory. Chess is a game with perfect information; Texas Hold’em is not, as it has hidden information, the cards you are not revealed to the other players.

When the situation is complex, you will need to decide on what matters most to you, based on the imperfect information you have gathered. This means the decision you made may not really be the best; though, the more you know, the better your decision might be.

First Impressions

The website is considered the first impression for me. The landing page of threejs.org is clean, and it showcases some very impressive projects; the site for babylonjs.com is minimalist, showing the best features of real-time rendering but not immediately attractive.

Documentation

If you are somewhat serious about your project, you should pay attention to the documentation of the software tools. In fact, both three.js and babylon.js have very good documentation, **after **you locate what you’re looking for.

Three.js organize the documents in a way that you’ll expect, just like any other software; babylon.js has some innovative ideas, especially when it heavily intertwining Playground as examples for documentation, but it is not easy for you to navigate. Give it a try if you want to use CatmullRom, you can compare how easy to locate that on three.js and how confusing babylon.js’s documentation system might be.

Getting Started

Babylon.js has something three.js does not offer, the Playground. It offers you a quick start on seeing what the program can do, but one thing is not immediately clear is how to translate Playground into your own application. A developer’s goal is to build their own.

Babylon.js seems to provide more than one way to learn but in a non-linear fashion. You have to constantly make choices on what to read next, but it is not easy for someone new to even know what she/he should learn.

Three.js offers normal steps in learning. It seems easy to follow for someone with a reasonable programming background.

#web-development #javascript #three #babylon #webgl