@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ The aim of the project is to create an easy to use, lightweight, 3D library. The
### Usage ###
Download the [minified library](http://threejs.org/build/three.min.js) and include it in your html.
Download the [minified library](http://threejs.org/build/three.min.js) and include it in your html, or install and import it as a [module](http://threejs.org/docs/#manual/introduction/Import-via-modules),
Alternatively see [how to build the library yourself](https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/wiki/Build-instructions).
While importing three.js via script tags is a great way to get up and running fast, it has a few drawbacks for longer lived projects, for example:
<ul>
<li>You have to manually fetch and include a copy of the library as part of your project's source code</li>
<li>Updating the library's version is a manual process</li>
<li>When checking in a new version of the library your version control diffs are cluttered by the many lines of the build file</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>Using a dependency manager like npm avoids these caveats by allowing you to simply download and import your desired version of the libarary onto your machine.</div>
<h2>Installation via npm</h2>
<div>Three.js is published as an npm module, see: <ahref="https://www.npmjs.com/package/three"target="_blank">npm</a>. This means all you need to do to include three.js into your project is run "npm install three"</div>
<h2>Importing the module</h2>
<div>Assuming that you're bundling your files with a tool such as <ahref="https://webpack.github.io/"target="_blank">Webpack</a> or <ahref="https://github.com/substack/node-browserify"target="_blank">Browserify</a>, which allow you to "require('modules') in the browser by bundling up all of your dependencies."</div>
<div>
You should now be able to import the module into your source files and continue to use it as per normal.
</div>
<code>
var THREE = require('three');
var scene = new THREE.Scene();
...
</code>
<div>
You're also able to leverage <ahref="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Statements/import"target="_blank">ES6 import syntax</a>:
</div>
<code>
import * as THREE from 'three';
const scene = new THREE.Scene();
...
</code>
<div>
or if you wish to import only select parts of three.js library, for example Scene:
</div>
<code>
import { Scene } from 'three';
const scene = new Scene();
...
</code>
<h2>Caveats</h2>
<div>
Currenlty it's not possible to import the files within the "examples/js" directroy in this way.
This is due to some of the files relying on global namespace pollution of THREE. For more information see <ahref="https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/issues/9562"target="_blank">Transform `examples/js` to support modules #9562</a>.