3D CSS Carousel Generator
Generate production-ready, GPU-accelerated 3D carousels with pure CSS. Calculate perfect polygon radii and rotation angles automatically.
Drag to rotate • Scroll to zoom
About
Creating a true 3D carousel in CSS requires precise trigonometric calculations to ensure the panels meet perfectly at the edges to form a regular polygon. This tool automates the math behind transform-style: preserve-3d.
By calculating the exact apothem (distance from the center to the panel), we can position elements in 3D space using translateZ. This approach forces the browser to use the GPU for rendering, resulting in buttery-smooth 60fps animations compared to JavaScript-based position manipulation.
Risk of Manual Calculation: Guessing the translateZ value usually results in gaps between panels or overlapping images. This generator solves for r based on the panel width and count.
Formulas
To Arrange n items of width w in a circle, we calculate the Apothem (r):
r = w2 โ tanฯ รท n
The rotation angle (ฮธ) for each item i is:
ฮธi = i ร 360 รท n
Reference Data
| Property | Description | Impact on Performance |
|---|---|---|
| perspective | Determines the distance between the z=0 plane and the user. | Low (Render layer) |
| preserve-3d | Tells the browser to render children in their own 3D space. | Medium (Creates stacking context) |
| backface-visibility | Hides the back of the panel when rotated away. | High (Saves GPU draw calls) |
| translateZ | Pushes items outward from the center point. | Low (Composite layer) |
| will-change | Hints to the browser to optimize for changes. | High (Use sparingly) |