Inspired by three.js and ammo.js, and driven by the fact that the web lacks a physics engine, here comes cannon.js.

Demos - Documentation - Rendering hints - NPM package

Download the library and include it in your html. Alternatively, build the library yourself (see Makefile).

<script src="cannon.js"></script>

The code below creates a sphere on a plane, steps the simulation, and prints the sphere simulation to the console.

// Setup our world
var world = new CANNON.World();
world.gravity.set(0,0,-9.82);
world.broadphase = new CANNON.NaiveBroadphase();
    
// Create a sphere
var mass = 5, radius = 1;
var sphereShape = new CANNON.Sphere(radius);
var sphereBody = new CANNON.RigidBody(mass,sphereShape);
sphereBody.position.set(0,0,10);
world.add(sphereBody);
    
// Create a plane
var groundShape = new CANNON.Plane();
var groundBody = new CANNON.RigidBody(0,groundShape);
world.add(groundBody);
    
// Step the simulation
setInterval(function(){
  world.step(1.0/60.0);
  console.log("Sphere z position: " + sphereBody.position.z);
}, 1000.0/60.0);

If you want to know how to use cannon.js with a rendering engine, for example Three.js, see the Examples.

¹ including Cylinder

Current

• Changed API for adding forces and impulses to a body. See RigidBody.addImpulse and RigidBody.addForce.
• Removed World.collision_matrix and instead added World.collisionMatrix and World.collisionMatrixPrevious. They both now work with body indices instead of body IDs.
• Added SPHSystem.
• Renamed RigidBody.calculateAABB to .computeAABB. Added RigidBody.aabbNeedsUpdate.
• Added Broadphase.useBoundingBoxes, .doBoundingBoxBroadphase and .intersectionTest.
• ConvexPolyhedron constructor now calculates normals instead of taking them as a parameter.
• Added Body.collisionFilterGroup and Body.collisionFilterMask.
• Added GridBroadphase, though it only supports Plane and Sphere for now.
• Removed World.temp.
• Reuse of various event objects to minimize object creation in the step loop.
• Removed unused class ContactPoint.
• Changed the signature of Broadphase.collisionPairs to Broadphase.collisionPairs(world,pairs1,pairs2), removing the need of an array return value.

0.5.0

• Changed unit of sleep properties in Particle to seconds instead of milliseconds, made Particle.sleepState public. (schteppe,airbaggins).
• Changed property Shape.boundingSphereRadius to being a number, added method Shape.computeBoundingSphereRadius and .boundingSphereRadiusNeedsUpdate
• Removed Box.getCorners
• Added properties to ContactMaterial: .contactEquationStiffness, .contactEquationRegularizationTime, .frictionEquationStiffness, .frictionEquationRegularizationTime to be able to control settings for the on-the-fly created contact constraints
• Renamed the solver parameter "damping" to "regularizationTime", since it is a more correct name.
• Solver parameters (stiffness, damping etc) were moved from Solver to Equation. Now you control the solver parameters per constraint instead of globally.
• Added HingeConstraint and its Constraint base class
• Added contact support for all possible Shape.types (see table above).
• Fixed convex contact bugs.
• Added method ConvexPolyhedron.getAveragePointLocal.
• Added method ConvexPolyhedron.transformAllPoints.
• Added SplitSolver.
• Removed use of typed arrays, since they are slower than ordinary ones.
• Corrected applying of linear and angular damping, should now be physically correct and independent of timestep size.
• Renamed Solver to GSSolver, made Solver a base class instead.
• Added method Mat3.setTrace
• ContactGenerator now produces ContactEquation instead of ContactPoint
• Added property Solver.tolerance
• Changed default Solver parameter values
• Improved Solver algorithm, the parameters .a, .b, .k, .d, .eps do not have the same effect anymore.
• Rewrote Solver, Equation and Constraint totally, broke backward compatibility.
• Added property World.enableImpulses - still an experimental feature
• Added PointToPointConstraint
• Added Cylinder.
• Added method RigidBody.applyImpulse
• Added "iterator" method Box.forEachWorldCorner
• Added "abstract method" Shape.calculateWorldAABB and implemented it in subclasses.
• Removed Plane.normal in favor of RigidBody.quaternion. One way to rotate a plane is enough.

0.4.3

• World now dispatches "preStep" and "postStep" events.
• Introduced Body and Particle. New inheritance: Body -> Particle -> RigidBody.
• Added Quaternion.toAxisAngle()
• Added Ray. Basic hit testing for ConvexPolyhedra.
• RigidBody now dispatches the following events: "collide", "sleep", "sleepy", "wakeup"
• Added Solver.setSpookParams(k,d) and removed SPOOK param things from World.
• Sleep functionality for RigidBody

0.4.2 2012-08-06

• Code seem stable enough to start a change log.

The simpler todos are marked with @todo in the code. Github Issues can and should also be used for todos.

Create an issue on here if you need help.