WebGPU: Texture component swizzle

Category: Graphics
Type: New or changed feature
Status: Proposed (Chrome Proposed)
Intent stage: None

Breaking change: No
Enterprise impact: None
Chromium flag: Enable Unsafe WebGPU
Spec maturity: Published standard
Web Platform Tests: Yes

WPT details: WebGPU/WGSL have a conformance test suite (https://github.com/gpuweb/cts) that is regularly pulled into Chromium and part of the testing of Dawn/Tint in Chromium. While the CTS can be embedded in WPT, the WebGPU team opted to keep it separate in Chromium testing to use a customized harness for robustness and performance. All the tests about this feature in WebGPU CTS can be found at https://github.com/gpuweb/cts/pull/4427

Summary

Functionality added to the WebGPU spec after its first shipment in a browser. Allows GPUTextureViews to rearrange or replace the color components from texture's red/green/blue/alpha channels when accessed by a shader.

Motivation

The texture component swizzle optional feature allows for efficient, flexible, and robust texture sampling in WebGPU, enabling developers to optimize performance, correct component ordering mismatches, and reuse shader code across various texture formats. https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb/pull/5361

Standards & signals

Specification: https://gpuweb.github.io/gpuweb/#dom-gpufeaturename-texture-component-swizzle
Firefox: No signal
Safari: Closed Without a Position
Web developers: No signals
Tracking bug: https://issues.chromium.org/issues/414312052

Ecosystem

Web Platform Tests: https://wpt.fyi/results/?q=webgpu%2FWGSL
Chrome Platform Showcase: https://chrome-platform-showcase.paulkinlan-ea.deno.net/features
GenDN reference: https://gendn.paulkinlan-ea.deno.net/features
chrome.dev demos search: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Achrome.dev+WebGPU%3A%20Texture%20component%20swizzle
MDN Web Docs: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/search?q=WebGPU%3A%20Texture%20component%20swizzle
Baseline status: https://webstatus.dev/?q=WebGPU%3A%20Texture%20component%20swizzle

Explainers: https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb/blob/main/proposals/texture-component-swizzle.md

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