Three with Node and Server Side Three

Questions
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1

Hobbyist web programmer here that just built a fun three.js app that does some engineering calculations for me. I mostly use three.js for the user interface and graphics.

I now want to expose this code externally to other computers with what I think is this mythical “API” term, eliminating the need to interact with the three.js user interface.

In order to do this, I think I need to move the code server-side and have users send a json type input and have the server respond with a json file type output of engineering results.

From what I have read, there might be some issues with running three.js server-side.
The api calls would rely only very minimally on three. For example, I store shapes for the engineering calculations in the three.js classes, for example:

createShapeFromPoints(points) {
        const shape = new THREE.Shape();
        if (points.length === 0) return shape;
        
        // Move to first point
        const firstPoint = new THREE.Vector2(points[0].x, points[0].y);
        shape.moveTo(firstPoint.x, firstPoint.y);
        
        // Connect remaining points with lines
        for (let i = 1; i < points.length; i++) {
            shape.lineTo(points[i].x, points[i].y);
        }
        
        // Close the shape
        shape.lineTo(firstPoint.x, firstPoint.y);
        
        // Add holes if provided
        this.holes.forEach(hole => shape.holes.push(hole));
        
        return shape;
    }

In addition, there are nice functions that I use three.js like computeBoundingSphere() in some locations throughout the code.

At no point in the api response would I need to call things like canvas elements that exist in the web api only.

So, with that, would I be better recreating all of the three.js functions in vanilla javascript, or would it be ok to utilize minimal three.js code in the server side api calls?

Thanks!

2

If you’re not using renderers, materials, or textures, then I think you’ll find the remainder of the three.js library works fine in a Node.js server environment. But I would just start with something very simple like…

import * as THREE from 'three';

const a = new THREE.Vector2(0, 0);

console.log(a);

… to confirm that there’s nothing more tricky with your Node.js version, CommonJS vs. ESM modules, or something like that.