Is silverlight better or wpf for graphics, 3d?

I le开发者_JS百科arning wpf/silverlight currently. I want to ask which one of them is better for graphics, 3d, ... ?

People say "Silverlight is a subset of WPF" -- what they mean is that the programming model is the same (code + XAML), but Silverlight generally has a smaller API / less features than WPF.

I think a good example would be creating a reflection. In WPF you could use a VisualBrush, but Silverlight doesn't support it. Still you can create the same effect by creating a 2nd transformed element. You can pretty much acomplish the same task in both, although for Silverlight you may have to do some processing tasks on the server.

The choice of platform depends more on whether you want to target web deployment or not and possibly performance.

3D isn't implemented in Silverlight 4 (though there are 3D libraries out there). 3D will be part of Silverlight 5. (Beta coming soon, probably at MIX, and to be released this year.)

i would sugest wpf in WPF you have all the Viewport sutff where you can do real 3d, In Silverlight you have PlaneTransformation but it is not close to real 3d WPF 3d tutorial

The deal is more deeper as I understand. We will speak about WPF and Silverlight 5. There are two mechanisms of 3D Graphics. Before WPF it was a single one - so named pipeline graphics. It includes DirectX, OpenGL and multiple derivative and independent realizations (XNA from DirectX, for example). Although WPF is based internally on DirectX it realizes absolutely different conception of smart graphics. What is the difference for a pipeline and smart mechanism? The pipeline mechanism consists of infinity loop of drawing objects - typically primitives like vertex, triangles. It works by initialization of so named infinity loop by calling something like OnDraw/ReDraw method. WPF does not use ReDraw and does not draw anything until we directly detect it. It is single correct way to use it. Therefore WPF allows to draw UI Elements with internal support of hundreds events, methods and full freedom of management (like usual WPF control - textbox, for example). (Helix 3D is good library for easy way to WPF 3D) And vice versa, Silverlight 5 has some API of XNA graphics - pipeline way without UIElement support for 3D objects. There is Kit3D library http://kit3d.codeplex.com/ as very good idea for smart graphic realization for Silverlight and there are many other realizations (Balder, Babylon) on pipeline mechanism. If you are interesting to code an application like web 3D Game - choose pipeline Silverlight 3D graphics, if you are interesting about smart 3D applications - choose WPF 3D.

Author of WPF 3D CAE system TIMO Structural.