Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Water-Simulation with Real-Time Reflections and Perlin-Noise Terrain
Water-Simulation with real time specular reflection on the waters surface. The reflection is implemented in GLSL and runs on the GPU and in screen space. The water itself is implemented using a pressure based approach for the surface calculation. - MauriceGit/Water_Simulation
Water-Simulation is a graphics software that renders realistic water surfaces with real-time reflections and refractions. It uses GPU-accelerated GLSL shaders running in screen space to handle reflection calculations… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Water-Simulation with Real-Time Reflections and Perlin-Noise Terrain launched in 2016; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
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This is a GPU "software" raytracer (i.e. using manual ray-scene intersections and not RTX) written using the WebGPU API that renders glTF scenes. It supports many materials, textures, material & normal mapping, and heavily relies on multiple importance sampling to speed up convergence.
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 2

An introduction to non-line-of-sight imaging, and how to create images of hidden objects around a corner in under 10 minutes!
2019 · analytech-solutions.com · its alternatives →
- 3

Contribute to westoncb/nonlinear-optics-sandbox development by creating an account on GitHub.
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 4RT
2023 · antimatter15.com · its alternatives →
- 5

It's been closed source for a long time while I worked on it on and off as a hobby research project, but yesterday the repo was made public for the first time under the MPL 2.0 license. A feature reel showing its capabilities can be found here: https://ktstephano.github.io/rendering/stratusgfx/feature_re... A technical breakdown of a single frame can be found here: https://ktstephano.github.io/rendering/stratusgfx/frame_anal... It's still in a very beta state (bugs and instability expected), but I felt like it was a good time to make it…
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
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2018 · pbr-book.org · its alternatives →
- 7

GPU Raytracer from scratch in C++/CUDA. Contribute to jan-van-bergen/GPU-Raytracer development by creating an account on GitHub.
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 8
micro-gl▲101Run vector graphics on any computer (without GPU or FPU)
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 9

Back in the old days, people used to do general-purpose GPU programming by using shaders like GLSL. This is what inspired NVIDIA (and other companies) to eventually create CUDA (and friends). This is an implementation of GPT-2 using WebGL and shaders. Enjoy!
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 10

We ported pbrt-v4 to Julia and built it into a Makie backend. Any Makie plot can now be rendered with physically-based path tracing. Julia compiles user-defined physics directly into GPU kernels, so anyone can extend the ray tracer with new materials and media - a black hole with gravitational lensing is ~200 lines of Julia. Runs on AMD, NVIDIA, and CPU via KernelAbstractions.jl, with Metal coming soon. Demo scenes: github.com/SimonDanisch/RayDemo
Feb 2026 · makie.org · its alternatives →
- 11

🌊 Julia software for fast, friendly, flexible, ocean-flavored fluid dynamics on CPUs and GPUs - CliMA/Oceananigans.jl
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Mobile-first 3D mapping engine with emphasis on user experience - felixpalmer/procedural-gl-js
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 14PV
2016 · guillaumechereau.github.io · its alternatives →
- 15

I've been going through Cem Yuksel's "Introduction to Computer Graphics" course and thought that writing a volume renderer would be a good way to test my knowledge. It is a common technique used to render 3D medical data. Works by ray marching a specific step size, reading a 3D texture (e.g. MRI data), and calculating opacity values. Code should be easy to get started with for anyone familiar with the JS ecosystem. Questions for the HN community: I spent 20-25% of the entire time just setting up the project and fighting issues with the JavaScript ecosystem. This experience has made me…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 16

A prototype implementation of cloth simulation. It uses the soft body dynamics support in ammo.js.
2020 · playcanv.as · its alternatives →
- 17

Explore advanced web development for online casinos at Juliango 202. Learn about programming languages, RNG algorithms, and secure platform architecture.
2018 · juliango202.com · its alternatives →
- 18

Fluid simulation in liquidfun-wasm
2021 · birchlabs.co.uk · its alternatives →
- 19

I’ve been experimenting with Rust lately and wanted a project that would help me explore some of its lower-level and performance-oriented features. Inspired by Sebastian Lague’s videos, I decided to implement my own ray tracer from scratch. The initial goal was just to render a simple 3D scene in the browser at a reasonable frame rate. It evolved into a small renderer that can: • Run locally or on the web using wgpu and WebAssembly • Perform mesh rendering with a Bounding Volume Hierarchy (BVH) for acceleration • Simulate both direct and indirect illumination for photorealistic results • Be…
Nov 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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2021 · victorribeiro.com · its alternatives →
- 21

Demo of agent based model on GPU with CUDA and OpenGL (Windows/Linux) Agent instances on GPU memory Uses SSBO for instanced objects (with GLSL 450 shaders) CUDA OpenGL interops Renders with GLFW3 window manager Dynamic camera views in OpenGL (pan,zoom with mouse) Libraries installed using vcpkg (https://github.com/KienTTran/ABMGPU)
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 22AR
2018 · tylermw.com · its alternatives →
- 23
Shader Vision▲138Real-time GPU shader editor for spatial computing
2024 · shader.vision · its alternatives →
- 24

I just think they're neat
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
Also compare
- I've made a Monte-Carlo raytracer for glTF scenes in WebGPU alternatives
- Wave-based non-line-of-sight computational imaging in Julia alternatives
- Real-time nonlinear optics simulation (JS/GLSL) alternatives
- Real-Time 3D Gaussian Splatting in WebGL alternatives
- StratusGFX, my open-source real-time 3D rendering engine alternatives
- Physically Based Rendering – Online Edition alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →