It may have started as a lark, but the annual JS1K contest has long since ceased to be a joke. This year’s contest is already in full swing and notable for a spectacular 3D drawing of a rose rendered using less than 1024 bytes of JavaScript.

The JS1K contest seeks the web’s best JavaScript creations, with one small catch — the code used must be less than 1k. It might sound insane considering that some JavaScript frameworks — just the frameworks! — are over 100k, but since it began several years ago, JS1K’s experiments have never failed to impress.

One of this year’s most jaw-dropping efforts to date is developer Román Cortés 3D rendering of a rose. Relying on Monte Carlo methods to keep the code size down, Cortés’ code draws a very nicely shaded 3D rose for the love-themed 2012 edition of JS1K. You can check out the live demo on the JS1K website.

One word of warning, part of what makes Cortés’ rose so small is that much of the heavy lifting is handed off to the processor. The demo code brought my CPU use over 100 percent and kept it pegged there the entire time it was open in Safari. Firefox and Chrome both managed to keep the number down to roughly 93 percent, but suffice to say that a procedurally generated 3D rose will tax your CPU.

To see how Cortés created the code behind the rose, be sure to visit his blog which offers a very thorough tutorial explaining how and why the code works. There’s also a great write up on Cortés’ previous JS1K effort, a 3D Christmas tree. Also be sure to check out the other submissions to this year’s JS1K contest on the JS1K website.

If you’ve got some impressive, but terribly small bit of JavaScript code up your sleeve, fear not, the JS1K contest will continue accepting submissions through Wednesday, March 14 2012. Details on the rules and submission process can be found on the JS1K website.

Webmonkey