Is it possible to create an HTML canvas without a DOM element?

Question

I\'d like to have an HTML canvas context that I can paint to and read off-screen (in this example, writing text and reading the shape that is created, but it\'s a general qu

Answer 1

There is apparently a new thing called OffscreenCanvas that was deliberately designed for this use case. An additional bonus is that it also works in Web Workers.

You can read the specifications here: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/canvas.html#the-offscreencanvas-interface

And see examples here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/OffscreenCanvas

Currently it is only fully supported by Chrome and is available behind flags in Firefox and Opera, but you can always check for the latest information on supported browsers here: https://caniuse.com/#feat=offscreencanvas

ps.: Google also has a dedicated guide explaining it's use in Web Workers: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/08/offscreen-canvas