Žiga Lesar¹, Gorazd Gorup², Uroš Šmajdek²

University of Nova Gorica¹, University of Ljubljana²

WED evening + THU morning

WebGPU is a modern web API designed for efficient rendering of 2D and 3D graphics as well as general-purpose computation on the GPU. Inspired by contemporary native graphics APIs such as Vulkan, DirectX 12, and Metal, WebGPU provides low-level access to GPU capabilities while maintaining a clean and approachable programming model for the web. It enables developers and researchers to fully utilize modern graphics hardware without the heavy boilerplate that is often associated with it. An important advantage of WebGPU is that applications run directly in the browser and are immediately accessible across a wide range of devices and operating systems, which makes it particularly attractive for research dissemination.

This workshop is aimed at graphics and visualization researchers, developers, and students who want to learn the fundamentals of WebGPU and how it fits into the evolving landscape of GPU programming. Through hands-on examples, the workshop will introduce key concepts such as transferring data between the CPU and GPU, processing data with shaders in the WebGPU Shading Language (WGSL), and constructing rendering and compute pipelines. By the end of the workshop, participants will have a solid understanding of how to develop rendering engines and how to build GPU-accelerated applications in the browser..

Žiga Lesar is an Assistant Professor and a graphics and visualization researcher at the University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia. His research is focused on interactive crowded volume visualization in the fields of microbiology, material sciences, and medical imaging. He also has extensive experience with game technologies and interactive computer graphics. He is passionate about web technologies and open research, which is why he chose to support his work with web-accessible demos.

Gorazd Gorup is a PhD student at the Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Multimedia, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Computer and Information Science. His research focuses on point clouds in geographical terrain monitoring, particularly analysis and editing of huge point clouds. His work also explores areas of 3D animation and non-destructive node-based geometry editing.

Uroš Šmajdek is a PhD student at the Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Multimedia, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Computer and Information Science. His research focuses on visualization in the digital humanities, alongside high-performance visualization of molecular models and cryo-electron tomography data.