caustic-volume
Real-time water caustics in the browser, built on three.js. Single-file lite and sandbox versions.
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GITHUB · launched Sep 26, 2026 · 162 upvotes (top 5%) · 0 views
Niche: graphics rendering engines and libraries · 149 launches, 10 in the last 7 days ▼ -23% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Dev tools
- Developer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 149 launches in graphics rendering engines and libraries →
Could you build this?
Partial Setting up a Three.js canvas in the browser is simple, but authoring custom real-time volumetric caustics GLSL shaders requires specialized knowledge of optical physics and graphics programming.
What it would actually take: Requires Three.js or raw WebGL/WebGPU with custom GLSL shaders simulating light refraction and photon mapping/raymarching across volumetric water depths. The difficult part is optimizing frame-rate performance for complex mathematical caustic calculations (such as wave normal generation and screen-space light transport) in a single-file implementation. Requires expertise in computer graphics and 3D shader math.
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 880 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #61 of 881 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 324 days after the earliest competitor.
- Ultra-Water · github · 2026-10-28 · 523 upvotes · similarity 0.67
- threejs-particle-fluids · github · 2026-09-25 · 175 upvotes · similarity 0.61
- open-water · github · 2026-10-20 · 113 upvotes · similarity 0.57
- ClearWater6.1 · github · 2026-09-29 · 24 upvotes · similarity 0.56
- coastal-simulation · github · 2026-09-19 · 45 upvotes · similarity 0.56
- Realistic-Water · github · 2026-10-06 · 17 upvotes · similarity 0.55
- globes · github · 2026-10-20 · 56 upvotes · similarity 0.55
- minamo · github · 2026-10-24 · 21 upvotes · similarity 0.54
The niche, labels, vibe code rating and competitor comparison on this page are analysis by Nicheloom. If you use them, please credit nicheloom.com. How you may use our data.