Add shape in front of camera on a sphere [AFrame] (camera rotation/camera position) - math

I have been trying to create a simple application whereby a 360 image is shown on a Sphere. The next step is to dynamically add 'hotspots' onto this image as the user pans around.
I've tried many different approaches (including delving deep deep into Three.JS) but it doesn't seem to be that easy. (UVs, positions, vertices etc).
A-Frame is awesome at making it super simple for developers to get up and running. I managed to find an example whereby there were two 'hotspots' on a sphere, which when hovered/focused, the sphere background changed.
I'm looking to create a new 'hotspot' in the cameras direction, however this is proving to be quite difficult because the camera position never changes but the rotation does.
For example, after panning, I see the following:
<a-camera position="0 2 4" camera="" look-controls="" wasd-controls="" rotation="29.793805346802827 -15.699043586584567 0">
<a-cursor color="#4CC3D9" fuse="true" timeout="10" material="color:#4CC3D9;shader:flat;opacity:0.8" cursor="maxDistance:1000;fuse:true;timeout:10" geometry="primitive:ring;radiusOuter:0.016;radiusInner:0.01;segmentsTheta:64" position="0 0 -1" raycaster=""></a-cursor>
</a-camera>
Ideally, to create a new hotspot in this position, I assumed all I'd need to do it add the rotation values to the position value and that'd be the correct place for the hotspot, but unfortunately, this doesn't work, either the hotspot is in the wrong position, it's not facing the camera or its no longer in view.
How can I create a 'hotspot' in the cameras viewpoint (in the middle)?
I've setup a codepen which should help show the problem I'm having better. Ideally when I pan around and click 'create hotspot', a 'hotspot' should be created directly in the middle (just like the red and yellow ones).
Thanks!
UPDATE: An idea I've had is to have a secondary sphere (smaller radius) with no background. If it's easy to know the XYZ coordinates of the camera view intersecting it, then this is made super simple. Is there a way of finding this out?

Without any intersection, when you know the position of the camera, this is the vector which needs to be: negated, normalized, multiplied by a scalar value which equals to the radius of the sphere. The result is the point of your new hotspot.
var pos = camera.position.clone().negate().normalize().multiplyScalar(sphereRadius);
jsfiddle example

Yes, I think your second idea is right, you can make a new sphere which has seam position with your camera. If you want to make a new 'hotspot' on your center of screen. you can make a raycaster from camera to the 'hotspot' and it will intersect the sphere. But, you should set the material's side property with 'doubleside', if not, you won't intersect the sphere. then, you can get the intersect[0].point.
var pos = new THREE.Vector3().copy(cameraEl.getComputedAttribute("position"));
cameraEl.object3D.localToWorld(pos);
var vector = new THREE.Vector3(( event.clientX / window.inneenter code hererWidth ) * 2 - 1, -( event.clientY / window.innerHeight ) * 2 + 1, 0.5);
vector = vector.unproject(camera);
var raycaster = new THREE.Raycaster(pos, vector.sub(camera.position).normalize());
var intersects = raycaster.intersectObjects([sphere],true);
if(intersects.length > 0)
{
console.log(intersects[0].point);
}
`

Related

Set orthographic camera position to display extents of plane in OSG

I have an orthographic camera in an osg scene. There are flat objects (planes) which will be displayed in that scene, and I want to be able to have the camera automatically point at them to as to view them head-on, and also to be zoomed to show as much of the plane as possible without chopping off any edges.
So far I've oriented myself correctly to look at the plane:
osg::Vec3d eye; // dummy
osg::Vec3d center; // we only really care about this here
osg::Vec3d up; // dummy
cameraManipulator->getViewMatrixAsLookAt(eye, center, up);
osg::Vec3d desiredVec(velocityX, velocityY, velocityZ); // velocity of the plane I want to look at
desiredVec.normalize();
desiredVec = -desiredVec; // invert
desiredVec += center; // align
cameraManipulator->setViewMatrixAsLookAt(desiredVec, center, osg::Vec3d(0, 0, -1));
This positions me so that I'm viewing the plane head-on, but it's zoomed in way too far, so I think what I need to do is offset my camera back a bit along the velocity vector by some value, and I don't know how to calculate that value. Something like this:
osg::Vec3d dir = desiredVec - center; // the direction (vector) in which we want to move
dir.normalize();
double scaleFactor = (width * height) / 2; // test
desiredVec += (dir * scaleFactor); // add it to desiredVec to move back in that direction (by scaleFactor)
The scaleFactor "test" stuff seems to work ok, it produces a view of the plane with a margin around the edge. I imagine this is what needs to change.
Basically, how do I calculate the distance I need to move the camera back by in order to view all of the current plane? I have information about the plane's velocity, size etc.
When using an orthographic camera, the size of the rendered objects (zoom effect) is not achieved by moving the camera, but by the size of the projection frustum you set on the camera.
None of the OSG camera manipulators implements a zooming effect for an ortho camera.
See this forum topic as a reference: http://forum.openscenegraph.org/viewtopic.php?t=10763&view=next

In aframe two multiple rotations looks identical

I've been building something in aframe (using the current master build from github as of 23rd March 2018) and have noticed that there are two sets of rotations that are identical that I don't think should be.
A model looks the same with its rotation attribute "270 90 90" and "270 180 0".
Similarly - setting the rotation attribute to "270 270 90" and "270 0 0" look the same.
I created a little demo to show this here - http://marcamillian.com/VR/rotationIssue.html.
Is this a bug or am I mis-understanding something?
=== Further information ===
I came across this when trying to add rotating animations a model from "270 90 0" along its roll axis and yaw axis and not getting the same motion on each.
After checking all of my functions I started setting the attribute on the model directly and getting the model looking the same for different rotation positions.
This is a pretty common problem in 3D computer graphics. Welcome to the gimbal lock problem! It is basically an issue you run into when trying to set rotations using "Euler" angles, especially when rotating in multiples of 90 degrees. If you are going to rotate like this try to only rotate by two axes (e.g. x and y) instead of all 3 (x,y,z).
More information here on gimbal lock: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc8b2Jo7mno&feature=youtu.be
An even better practise is to rotate using quaternions instead. I will also note that it is best practise to use components to make sure A-Frame is available to modify, or not as recommended a "loaded" event listener on a-scene (see this SO question for more info. How to detect when a scene is loaded in A-Frame?):
//listen for scene load s0 we know Aframe and Threejs are around to access. A snipped of your code, modified slightly for some direction ...
document.querySelector('a-scene').addEventListener('loaded', function () {
//AFRAME loaded
const scene = document.querySelector('a-scene');
const arrowElem = scene.querySelector(".shape-container");
//now set your click listener
setButton.addEventListener('click',function(){
let rotationValue = `${inputPitch.valueAsNumber} ${inputYaw.valueAsNumber} ${inputRoll.valueAsNumber}`
//arrowElem.setAttribute('rotation', rotationValue); //your way
//this doesn't work well ...
//arrowElem.object3D.rotation.set( THREE.Math.degToRad(inputPitch.valueAsNumber),
THREE.Math.degToRad(inputYaw.valueAsNumber),
THREE.Math.degToRad(inputRoll.valueAsNumber)
);
//consider how you can use quaternions instead
let quaternion = new THREE.Quaternion();
quaternion.setFromAxisAngle( new THREE.Vector3( 0, 1, 0 ), Math.PI / 2 ); //might have to change your logic to better use this functionality ...
})
});

3D perspective 'grab' panning with DirectX

I am implementing a pan tool in our software's 3D view which is supposed to work much like the grab tool of, say, Photoshop or Acrobat Reader. That is, the point the user grabs onto with the mouse (clicks and holds, then moves the mouse) stays under the mouse cursor as the mouse moves.
This is a common paradigm and one that's been asked about on SO before, the best answer being to this question about the technique in OpenGL. There is another that also has some hints, and I have been reading this very informative CodeProject article. (It doesn't explain many of its code examples' variables etc, but from reading the text I think I understand the technique.) But, I have some implementation issues because my 3D environment's navigation is set up quite differently to those articles, and I am seeking some guidance.
My technique - and this might be fundamentally flawed, so please say so - is:
The scene 'camera' is stored as two D3DXVECTOR3 points: the eye position and a look point. The view matrix is constructed using D3DXMatrixLookAtLH like so:
const D3DXVECTOR3 oUpVector(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); // Keep up "up", always.
D3DXMatrixLookAtLH(&m_oViewMatrix, &m_oEyePos, &m_oLook, &oUpVector);
When the mouse button is pressed, shoot a ray through that pixel and find: the coordinate (in unprojected scene / world space) of the pixel that was clicked on; the intersection of that ray with the near plane; and the distance between the near-plane point and object, which is the length between those two points. Store this and the mouse position, and the original navigation (eye and look).
// Get the clicked-on point in unprojected (normal) world space
D3DXVECTOR3 o3DPos;
if (Get3DPositionAtMouse(roMousePos, o3DPos)) { // fails if nothing under the mouse
// Mouse location when panning started
m_oPanMouseStartPos = roMousePos;
// Intersection at near plane (z = 0) of the ray from camera to clicked spot
D3DXVECTOR3 oRayVector;
CalculateRayFromPixel(m_oPanMouseStartPos, m_oPanPlaneZ0StartPos, oRayVector);
// Store original eye and look points
m_oPanOriginalEyePos = m_oEyePos;
m_oPanOriginalLook = m_oLook;
// Store the distance between near plane and the object, and the object position
m_dPanPlaneZ0ObjectDist = fabs(D3DXVec3Length(&(o3DPos - m_oPanPlaneZ0StartPos)));
m_oPanOriginalObjectPos = o3DPos;
Get3DPositionAtMouse is a known-ok method which picks a 3D coordinate under the mouse. CalculateRayFromPixel is a known-ok method which takes in a screen-space mouse coordinate and casts a ray, and fills the other two parameters with the ray intersection at the near plane (Z = 0) and the normalised ray vector.
When the mouse moves, cast another ray at the new position, but using the old (original) view matrix. (Thanks to Nico below for pointing this out.) Calculate where the object should be by extending the ray from the near plane the distance between the object and near plane (this way, the original object and new object points should be in parallel plane to the near plane.) Move the eye and look coordinates by this much. Eye and Look are set from their original (when panning started) values, with the difference being from the original mouse and new mouse positions. This is to reduce any precision loss from incrementing or decrementing by granular (integer) pixel movements as the mouse moves, ie it calculates the whole difference in navigation every time.
// Set navigation back to original (as it was when started panning) and cast a ray for the mouse
m_oEyePos = m_oPanOriginalEyePos;
m_oLook = m_oPanOriginalLook;
UpdateView();
D3DXVECTOR3 oRayVector;
D3DXVECTOR3 oNewPlaneZPos;
CalculateRayFromPixel(roMousePos, oNewPlaneZPos, oRayVector);
// Now intersect that ray (ray through the mouse pixel, using the original navigation)
// to hit the plane the object is in. Function uses a "line", so start at near plane
// and the line is of the length of the far plane away
D3DXVECTOR3 oNew3DPos;
D3DXPlaneIntersectLine(&oNew3DPos, &m_oPanObjectPlane, &oNewPlaneZPos, &(oRayVector * GetScene().GetFarPlane()));
// The eye/look difference /should/ be as simple as:
// const D3DXVECTOR3 oDiff = (m_oPanOriginalObjectPos - oNew3DPos);
// But that lags and is slow, ie the objects trail behind. I don't know why. What does
// work is to scale the from-to difference by the distance from the camera relative to
// the whole scene distance
const double dDist = D3DXVec3Length(&(oNew3DPos - m_oPanOriginalEyePos));
const double dTotalDist = GetScene().GetFarPlane() - GetScene().GetNearPlane();
const D3DXVECTOR3 oDiff = (m_oPanOriginalObjectPos - oNew3DPos) * (1.0 + (dDist / dTotalDist));
// Adjust the eye and look points by the same amount, so orthogonally changed
m_oEyePos = m_oPanOriginalEyePos + oDiff;
m_oLook = m_oPanOriginalLook + oDiff;
Diagram
This diagram is my working sketch for implementing this:
and hopefully explains the above much more simply than the text. You can see a moving point, and where the camera has to move to keep that point at the same relative position. The clicked-on point (the ray from the camera to the object) is just to the right of the straight-ahead ray representing the center pixel.
The problem
But, as you've probably guessed, this doesn't work as I hope. What I wanted to see was the clicked-on object moving with the mouse cursor. What I actually see is that the object moves in the direction of the mouse, but not enough, ie it does not keep the clicked-on point under the cursor. Secondly, the movement flickers and jumps around, jittering by up to twenty or thirty pixels sometimes, then flickers back. If I replace oDiff with something constant this doesn't occur.
Any ideas, or code samples showing how to implement this with DirectX (D3DX, DX matrix order, etc) will be gratefully read.
Edit
Commenter Nico below pointed out that when calculating the new position using the mouse cursor's moved position, I needed to use the original view matrix. Doing so helps a lot, and the objects stay near the mouse position. However, it's still not exact. What I've noticed is that at the center of the screen, it is exact; as the mouse moves further from the center, it gets out by more and more. This seemed to change based on how far away the object was, too. By pure 'I have no idea what I'm doing' guesswork, I scaled this by a factor of the near/far plane and how far away the object was, and this brings it very close to the mouse cursor, but still a few pixels away (1 to, say, 30 at the extreme edge of the screen, which is enough to make it feel wrong.)
Here's how i solve this problem.
float fieldOfView = 45.0f;
float halfFOV = (fieldOfView / 2.0f) * (DEGREES_TO_RADIANS);
float distanceToObject = // compute the world space distance from the camera to the object you want to pan
float projectionToWorldScale = distanceToObject * tan( halfFov );
Vector mouseDeltaInScreenSpace = // the delta mouse in pixels that we want to pan
Vector mouseDeltaInProjectionSpace = Vector( mouseDeltaInScreenSpace.x * 2 / windowPixelSizeX, mouseDeltaInScreenSpace.y * 2 / windowPixelSizeY ); // ( the "*2" is because the projection space is from -1 to 1)
// go from normalized device coordinate space to world space (at origin)
Vector cameraDelta = -mouseDeltaInProjectionSpace * projectionToWorldScale;
// now translate your camera by "cameraDelta".
Note this works for an field of view apsect ratio of 1, i think you would have to break up the "scale" into separate x and y components if they vertical field of view was different than the horizontal field of view
Also, you mentioned a "look at" vector. I'm not sure how my math would need to change for that since my camera is always looking straight down the z-axis.
One problem is your calculation of the new 3d position. I am not sure if this is the root cause, but you might try it. If it doesn't help, just post a comment.
The problem is that your offset vector is not parallel to the znear plane. This is because the two rays are not parallel. Therefore, if the have the same length behind znear, the distance of the end point to the znear plane cannot be equal.
You can calculate the offset vector with the theorem of intersecting lines. If zNearA and zNearB are the intersection points of the znear plane with ray A and ray B respectively, then the theorem states:
Length(original_position - cam_position) / Length(offset_vector) = Length(zNearA - cam_position) / Length(zNearB - zNearA)
And therefore
offset_vector = Length(original_position - cam_position) / Length(zNearA - cam_position) * (zNearB - zNearA)
Then you can be sure to move on a line that is parallel to the znear plane.
Just try it out and see if it helps.

How to Find global position of objects in a rotating scene THREE.JS

I am working on a 3D mesh manipulator using this : http://leapmotion.com. So far, I have been able manipulate the points just fine, by 'grabbing' and moving them, however I now want to be able to rotate the mesh and work on the opposite face. What I have done is add an extra object that is called 'rotatable' as Shown below:
scene=new THREE.Scene();
camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(70,window.innerWidth/window.innerHeight,1,8000)
renderer=new THREE.WebGLRenderer( { clearColor: 0x000000, clearAlpha: 1, maxLights:5 } )
//This is the 'Mesh Scene'
rotatable = new THREE.Object3D()
scene.add(rotatable)
//Mesh we are altering
var material = new THREE.MeshNormalMaterial()
material.side=2
var geom = new THREE.SphereGeometry(200,10,10);
var sphere = new THREE.Mesh(geom, material)
rotatable.add(sphere)
I am then trying to change the vertices of this sphere, but to do so I need to do a 'collision test' in order to see if the vertex is being 'grabbed' This involves check the vertex position and see if it coincides with one of your finger position (psuedoCode below)
if(finger.x == vertex.x && finger.y == vertex.y && finger.z == vertex.z){
vertex.grabbed = true
}
This works fine when the rotatable's rotation is zero, however when it starts to rotate, the collision test will still be testing for the unrotated vertex position (which makes sense). My question is how to find the position of the vertex in its 'scene / global' position. The only way I can think of doing this so far is to calculate the rotation of the 'rotatable' and use this vector to calculate the new vertex position.
I know nothing about math, so this may not be the way to go, and even if it is I will have to struggle through it so hard that I won't ever know if I'm just doing the math incorrectly, or this isn't the way I should go about calculating it. Obviously I'm willing to go through this work, but just want to make sure this is the way to do it, rather then an other simpler method.
If there are any other questions about the code, please let me know, and Thanks in advance for your time!
Isaac
To get the world position of a vertex specified in local coordinates, apply the object's world transform to the vertex like so:
vertex.applyMatrix4( object.matrixWorld );
(I am not familiar with leapmotion, so hopefully it does not impact this answer.)
Tip: maxLights is no longer required. And it is best to avoid material.side = 2. Use material.side = THREE.DoubleSide instead.
You can find the constants here: https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/blob/master/src/Three.js
three.js r.55

3D, AS3, Flex - Convert degrees of rotation to visible height

I need to know what the visible height of a display object will be after I change it's rotationX value.
I have an application that allows users to lay out a floor in 3D space. I want the size of the floor to automatically stretch after a 3D rotation so that it always covers a certain area.
Anyone know a formula for working this out?
EDIT: I guess what I am really trying to do is convert degrees to pixels.
On a 2D plane say 100 x 100 pixels, a -10 degree change on rotationX means that the plane has a gap at the top where it is no longer visible. I want to know how many pixels this gap will be so that I can stretch the plane.
In Flex, the value for the display objects height property remains the same both before and after applying the rotation, which may in fact be a bug.
EDIT 2: There must be a general math formula to work this out rather than something Flash/Flex specific. When viewing an object in 3D space, if the object rotates backwards (top of object somersaults away from the viewer), what would the new visible height be based on degrees of rotation? This could be in pixels, metres, cubits or whatever.
I don't have a test case, but off the top of my head I'd guess something like:
var d:DisplayObject;
var rotationRadians:Number = d.rotationX * Math.PI / 180;
var visibleHeight:Number = d.height * Math.cos(rotationRadians);
This doesn't take any other transformations into account, though.
Have you tried using the object's bounding rectangle and testing that?
var dO:DisplayObject = new DisplayObject();
dO.rotation = 10;
var rect:Rectangle = dO.getRect();
// rect.topLeft.y is now the new top point.
// rect.width is the new width.
// rect.height is the new height.
As to the floor, I would need more information, but have you tried setting floor.percentWidth = 100? That might work.
Have you checked DisplayObject.transform.pixelBounds? I haven't tried it, but it might be more likely to take the rotation into account.
Rotation actually changes DisplayObject's axis's (i.e. x and y axes are rotated). That is why you are not seeing the difference in height. So for getting the visual height and y you might try this.var dO:DisplayObject = new DisplayObject();
addChild();
var rect1:Rectangle = dO.getRect(dO.parent);
dO.rotation = 10;
var rect2:Rectangle = dO.getRect(dO.parent);
rect1 and rect2 should be different in this case. If you want to check the visual coordinates of the dO then just change dO.parent with root.

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