# metafizzy/zdog

Flat, round, designer-friendly pseudo-3D engine for canvas & SVG

Repository: https://github.com/metafizzy/zdog
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/zdog
Homepage: https://zzz.dog
Language: JavaScript
License Family: other
Topics: 3d, canvas, svg
Last push: 2023-07-18T21:43:53+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 23/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2737, "days_push": 1142, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 10649, forks 407 (observed 2026-08-28T04:10:43.654159+00:00)

## What it is
Zdog is a small, designer-friendly pseudo-3D JavaScript engine that renders simple 3D models as flat shapes on <canvas> or SVG. It uses a declarative API to build scenes from basic shapes like circles, rects, and thick lines, with built-in rotation and drag interaction.

## Use cases
- render simple 3D models on a web page
- create animated 3D illustrations with canvas or SVG
- add drag-to-rotate 3D graphics to a website
- build lightweight 3D visuals without WebGL
- design flat round 3D-style icons and characters
- teach 3D concepts with a simple declarative API

## When to choose
- you want simple, round, flat-shaded 3D visuals without the complexity of Three.js or WebGL
- you need a tiny dependency (28KB minified) with a declarative, designer-friendly API
- your project targets canvas or SVG rendering with vector-crisp circles

## When to avoid
- you need realistic lighting, textures, shadows, or full 3D rendering
- you need high-performance rendering of complex scenes or large polygon counts
- you need a mature, actively developed engine - Zdog v1 is self-described as beta and development has slowed

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: graphics, animation, ui-components
- domain: web-development, frontend, graphics
- platform: browser
- tags: pseudo-3d, canvas, svg, declarative-api, vector-graphics, 3d-modeling, game-development, javascript, nodejs

## Member repositories
- metafizzy/zdog (main) score 23

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:43.654159+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:18:13.730051+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/metafizzy/zdog (fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:43.654159+00:00, sha 0ddf4d78fbfa)
  - homepage: https://zzz.dog (fetched 2026-08-29T08:17:46.392368+00:00, sha 988cde6daebe)
  - site_page: https://zzz.dog/getting-started (fetched 2026-08-29T08:17:46.401349+00:00, sha 63b7cfcf0ac2)
  - registry_npm: https://registry.npmjs.org/zdog (fetched 2026-08-29T08:17:46.403159+00:00, sha b61594bace8b)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.