What is it?

KO3D is a fast, robust 3D plotting library written entirely in Javascript. It allows anyone (even you!) to employ interactive 3D plots of arbitrary data without requiring visitors to download any special plugins. The library will run in most modern browsers and operating systems - including most smartphones! You can see an example of it here, on our wiki's data page for LacI-repressible promoters.

How does it work?

KO3D utilizes the excellent 3D graphics library three.js by mrdoob to handle the graphics rendering legwork. KO3D takes your data points, turns them into colored triangles according to your choice of colormap, and uses the three.js library to plot them, along with axes, tickmarks, an optional grid, colored highlighting (for distinguishing between multiple datasets plotted on the same graph), and more! A few fancy matrix multiplications later, and you have interactivity.