On 6/4/25 3:41 AM, 'François Beaufort' via blink-dev wrote:
Contact emails
fbeauf...@google.com <mailto:fbeauf...@google.com>
Explainer
The "texture-compression-bc-sliced-3d" and
"texture-compression-astc-sliced-3d" WebGPU features add respectively
support for 3D textures using Block Compression (BC) and Adaptive
Scalable Texture Compression (ASTC) formats. This lets developers
leverage the efficient compression capabilities of BC and ASTC formats
for volumetric texture data, offering significant reductions in memory
footprint and bandwidth requirements without substantial loss in
visual quality.
This is particularly valuable in fields such as scientific
visualization, medical imaging, and advanced rendering techniques.
By exposing those capabilities as WebGPU features, developers can
explicitly check for support and provide fallback solutions or
alternative rendering paths when necessary.
Specification
https://gpuweb.github.io/gpuweb/#texture-compression-bc-sliced-3d
<https://gpuweb.github.io/gpuweb/#texture-compression-bc-sliced-3d>
https://gpuweb.github.io/gpuweb/#texture-compression-astc-sliced-3d
<https://gpuweb.github.io/gpuweb/#texture-compression-astc-sliced-3d>
At the risk of asking a silly question: the spec talks about "BC
compressed formats" and "ASTC compressed formats", but as a non-expert I
don't know where to go to learn more abut them. Is there some kind of
normative reference for what that means (I don't see any hyperlinks)?
Are there hidden interop challenges here, or does all the tooling that
might produce these things just work™?
Summary
Functionality added to the WebGPU spec after its first shipment in a
browser.
The “texture-compression-bc-sliced-3d” and
“texture-compression-astc-sliced-3d” WebGPU features add respectively
3D texture support for BC and ASTC compressed formats.
Blink component
Blink>WebGPU
<https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list?q=component:Blink%3EWebGPU>
TAG review
None
TAG review status
Not applicable
Risks
Interoperability and Compatibility
This feature has not yet been implemented in any browser. It has been
approved by the GPU for the Web Community Group, with representatives
from Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. See minutes at
https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb/wiki/GPU-Web-2024-07-10#consider-moving-sliced-3d-compressed-bc-texture-to-an-extension-4705
<https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb/wiki/GPU-Web-2024-07-10#consider-moving-sliced-3d-compressed-bc-texture-to-an-extension-4705>and
https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb/wiki/GPU-Web-2024-07-24#discussapprove-small-details-of-add-texture-compression-bc-sliced-3d-4763
<https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb/wiki/GPU-Web-2024-07-24#discussapprove-small-details-of-add-texture-compression-bc-sliced-3d-4763>
Gecko: No signal (Mozilla members have requested during weekly
standardization meetings that we postpone filing standard positions
until we reach Candidate Recommendation (CR) status in Q4.)
https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1205
<https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1205>
WebKit: Positive
(https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/294#issuecomment-1877411933
<https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/294#issuecomment-1877411933>)
Web developers: Positive (https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb/issues/3183
<https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb/issues/3183>)
Other signals:
WebView application risks
Does this intent deprecate or change behavior of existing APIs, such
that it has potentially high risk for Android WebView-based applications?
None
Debuggability
None
Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms
(Windows, Mac, Linux, ChromeOS, Android, and Android WebView)?
No
All platforms will eventually have support. Will immediately be
available on Android, Android WebView, ChromeOS, Mac, and Windows,
since those platforms already support WebGPU. Linux is planned to have
WebGPU support in the future, so this feature will become available
when WebGPU does.
Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests
<https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/testing/web_platform_tests.md>?
Yes
WebGPU/WGSL have a conformance test suite
(https://github.com/gpuweb/cts <https://github.com/gpuweb/cts>) that
is regularly pulled into Chromium and part of the testing of Dawn/Tint
in Chromium. While the CTS can be embedded in WPT, the WebGPU team
opted to keep it separate in Chromium testing to use a customized
harness for robustness and performance. All the tests about this
feature in WebGPU CTS can be found through
https://github.com/gpuweb/cts/issues/3761
<https://github.com/gpuweb/cts/issues/3761>and
https://github.com/gpuweb/cts/issues/3967
<https://github.com/gpuweb/cts/issues/3967>
Flag name on chrome://flags
Enable Unsafe WebGPU
Finch feature name
WebGPU.Enabled:UnsafeFeatures
Requires code in //chrome?
False
Tracking bug
https://issues.chromium.org/issues/342840940
<https://issues.chromium.org/issues/342840940>
Sample links
https://webgpu.github.io/webgpu-samples/?sample=volumeRenderingTexture3D
<https://webgpu.github.io/webgpu-samples/?sample=volumeRenderingTexture3D>
Estimated milestones
Shipping on desktop
139
Shipping on Android
139
Anticipated spec changes
Open questions about a feature may be a source of future web compat or
interop issues. Please list open issues (e.g. links to known github
issues in the project for the feature specification) whose resolution
may introduce web compat/interop risk (e.g., changing to naming or
structure of the API in a non-backward-compatible way).
None
Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status
https://chromestatus.com/feature/5080855386783744?gate=6225340422422528
<https://chromestatus.com/feature/5080855386783744?gate=6225340422422528>
This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status
<https://chromestatus.com/>.
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