CSS perspective
The CSS perspective property is used to adjust the position of a 3D element in relation to the user in order to provide a 3D perspective. More specifically, it adjusts the position of an element's child elements. Therefore, apply this property to an element's parent element in order to see the effect on the child element.
The perspective property defines the intensity of the 3D effect. This is because it defines how far the object is away from the user. So, a lower value will result in a more intensive 3D effect than a higher value. This is because the lower value indicates that the user is closer to the object. Therefore, perspective: 50px; will result in a more obvious 3D effect than perspective: 500px;.
Use this property in conjunction with the perspective-origin property, which determines the vanishing point for the 3D effect. By default, the vanishing point of the perspective property is at the center.
The examples on this page include browser-specific properties that start with extensions such as -webkit-, -moz-, etc. This is for browser compatibility reasons. See the bottom of this article for more on this.
| Syntax: |
perspective: none | <length>
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|---|---|
| Example |
Note that this example includes various CSS extensions in addition to the W3C CSS3 property. This is for browser compatibility.
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| Try it yourself! |
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| Possible Values: |
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| Initial Value: | none
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| Applies to: | This property applies only to transformable elements.
In HTML, a transformable element is either:
In SVG, a transformable element is an element which has the attributes |
| Inherited: | No |
| Media: | Visual |
| Computed Value: | Absolute length or "none". |
Browser Compatibility
At the time of writing, CSS3 was still under development and browser support for many CSS3 properties was limited or non-existent. For maximum browser compatibility many web developers add browser-specific properties by using extensions such as -webkit- for Safari and Google Chrome, -ms- for Internet Explorer, -moz- for Firefox, -o- for Opera etc. As with any CSS property, if a browser doesn't support a proprietary extension, it will simply ignore it.
This practice is not recommended by the W3C, however in many cases, the only way you can test a property is to include the CSS extension that is compatible with your browser.
Be aware that if you choose to use the proprietary CSS extensions in a live environment, your code will not pass any W3C CSS validation, as the browser-specific properties are not valid W3C properties.
Many of the CSS3 examples on this website include these browser specific properties. If they weren't included, most of the examples wouldn't work for most users (at least, not until possibly years after the article was written).
The major browser manufacturers are working to support the W3C properties, and eventually, you will be able to omit these browser-specific properties.