Rotating an Object properly around a pivot point given axis and angle - three.js

In Three.js there seems to be quite a few ways of rotation which i personally do not find very intuitive. See e.g. the example
http://cloud.engineering-bear.com/apps/robot/robot.html
I get very strange unexpected effects when I apply rotation to multiple objects. E.g. when I rotate objects that have been added to each other and start rotating the parent the individual objects will all over sudden by placed differently in respect to each other then they originally where. I am now experimenting with grouping and would like to avoid the same effect.
See http://pi-q-robot.bitplan.com/example/robot?robot=/models/thing3088064.json for the current state of affairs and https://github.com/BITPlan/PI-Q-Robot for the source code.
So i searched for proper examples following the different API options:
rotation
function renderScene() {
stats.update();
//side1.rotation.z += 0.02;
pivot.rotation.z += 0.02;
https://jsfiddle.net/of1vfhzz/1/
https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/issues/1958
rotateOnAxis
three.js rotate Object3d around Y axis at it center
How to rotate a 3D object on axis three.js?
ThreeJS - rotation around object's own axis
rotateAroundWorldAxis
object.rotateAroundWorldAxis(p, ax, r * Math.PI * 2 / frames);
How to rotate a object on axis world three.js?
https://stackoverflow.com/a/32038265/1497139
https://jsfiddle.net/b4wqxkjn/7/
THREE.js Update rotation property of object after rotateOnWorldAxis
rotateOnWorldAxis
object.rotateOnWorldAxis( axis, angle );
Rotate around World Axis
rotateAboutPoint
Three JS Pivot point
Rotation anchor point in Three.js
setRotationFromAxisAngle
https://threejs.org/docs/#api/en/core/Object3D.setRotationFromAxisAngle
setEulerFromQuaternion
quaternion = new THREE.Quaternion().setFromAxisAngle( axisOfRotation, angleOfRotation );
object.rotation.setEulerFromQuaternion( quaternion );
Three.js - Rotating a sphere around a certain axis
applyMatrix
this.mesh.updateMatrixWorld(); // important !
childPart.mesh.applyMatrix(new THREE.Matrix4().getInverse(this.mesh.matrixWorld))
Applying a matrix in Three.js does not what I expect
I like the jsFiddle for https://stackoverflow.com/a/56427636/1497139
var pivot = new THREE.Object3D();
pivot.add( cube );
scene.add( pivot );
I also found the following discussions
pivot issue in discourcee.three.js.org
https://discourse.threejs.org/t/rotate-group-around-pivot/3656
https://discourse.threejs.org/t/how-to-rotate-an-object-around-a-pivot-point/6838
https://discourse.threejs.org/t/set-dynamically-generated-groups-pivot-position-to-the-center-of-its-children-objects-position/6349
https://discourse.threejs.org/t/my-3d-model-is-not-rotating-around-its-origin/3339/3
https://jsfiddle.net/blackstrings/c0o3Lm45/
https://discourse.threejs.org/t/rotate-object-at-end-point/2190
https://jsfiddle.net/f2Lommf5/3594/
Questions
None of the above information is clear enough to get to the point of the problem to be solved. The graphics above are much clearer stating the problem than the proposals are stating a solution.
a)
I'd like to use the cylinder as the axis even when the cylinder is moved.I'd expect the easiest way to go would be to use rotateAroundWorldAxis - is that available in the latest revision from three.js or do i have to add it from e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/a/32038265/1497139?
b) I'd like to get a chain of objects to be rotated to later apply inverse kinematics as in
https://github.com/jsantell/THREE.IK
https://jsantell.github.io/THREE.IK/
Although i looked at the source code of that solutions I can't really find the place where the parent-child positioning and rotating is happening. What are the relevant lines of code / API functions that would make proper rotation around a chain of joints happen?
I already looked in the Bone/Skeleton API of Three.js but had the same problem there - lots of lines of code but no clear point where the rotation/positioning between child and parent happens.

Question a)
Basically it works as expected:
cylinder.position.set( options.x, 15, options.z );
pivot.position.x=options.x;
pivot.position.z=options.z;
see
https://jsfiddle.net/wf_bitplan_com/4f6ebs90/13/
Question b)
see
https://codepen.io/seppl2019/pen/zgJVKM
The key is to set the positions correctly. Instead of the proposal at https://stackoverflow.com/a/43837053/1497139 the size is computed in this case.
// create the pivot to rotate around/about
this.pivot = new THREE.Group();
this.pivot.add(this.mesh);
// shift the pivot position to fit my size + the size of the joint
this.pivot.position.set(
x,
y + this.size.y / 2 + this.pivotr,
z + this.size.z / 2
);
// reposition the mesh accordingly
this.mesh.position.set(0, this.size.y / 2, 0);

Related

Using quaternions for rotation causes my object to scale at specific angle

I am trying to build a rotation controller for my threejs objects. My rotation method is the following:
function rotate(axis, angle) {
rotMat = new THREE.Matrix4().makeRotationAxis(axis, angle);
rotMat.multiply(mesh.matrix);
rotQuat = new THREE.Quaternion().setFromRotationMatrix(rotMat);
mesh.quaternion.copy(rotQuat);
mesh.updateMatrix();
}
I need to do it this way in order to have a rotation around the world axes and not the local axes (related to this post -> I also cannot use the Euler rotation member here because of a problem i describe here)
Getting to my problem:
I made this JSFiddle which shows the issue pretty good.
How to recreate:
1) Open the fiddle link.
2) Press X, Y or Z on your keyboard to enter the rotation mode for the desired axis.
3) Hold 'Arrow Up' key and rotate as long as the 'strange' scaling occurs. Should happen at an angle of 90-100 degrees. Note that the scaling continues if you keep rotating
Also note that i decrease the rotation step size (rotation speed) when getting to the specific angle area. The scaling only occurs when the rotation step size is quite small.
My question is:
Does somebody know why a rotation is causing a scale?
The reason why this is happening is because you need to feed a 'pure' rotation matrix to the Quaternion.setFromRotationMatrix method. So changing the rotate function to the following will work:
function rotate (axis, angle) {
rotMat = new THREE.Matrix4().makeRotationAxis(axis, angle);
rotMat.multiply(mesh.matrix);
var rotMat2 = new THREE.Matrix4().extractRotation(rotMat);
rotQuat = new THREE.Quaternion().setFromRotationMatrix(rotMat2);
mesh.quaternion.copy(rotQuat);
mesh.updateMatrix();
}

Rotate around World Axis

I tried to rotate an object arount the Worlds-Y-Axis, with
myObject.rotateOnWorldAxis(new THREE.Vector3(0,1,0),THREE.Math.degToRad(1));
but the result was, that the object is only rotated in object space.
To be sure that I used the correct method I looked into the documentation and found that there are three methods to rotate an object:
.RotateY(rad) // rotate in Local Space
.rotateOnAxis(axis,rad) // rotation in Object Space
.rotateOnWorldAxis(axis,rad) // rotation in World Space
It seems that I used the correct method.
Is this a bug or an understanding problem on my side?
Here is a JSFiddle which illustrates my problem (the blue cube should rotate around the world axis).
Here is a second Fiddle where thy cyan cube is a child of another object.
It looks to me like your real question isn't regarding world space or object space rotations, cause those are working as expected in your examples.
You probably meant, how to change the point of rotation of an object. If that is the case, you have two options, you can either translate all your geometry vertices in respect to a pivot point of rotation. That way, your pivot will be centered at (0,0,0) and your vertices will rotate in respect to that.
mesh.geometry.translate( x, y, z );
Or you can make your object a child of a different Object3D (pivot), position your original mesh similarly to what was described above and rotate your pivot mesh.
var cube = new THREE.Mesh( geometry, material );
var pivot = new THREE.Object3D();
cube.position.set( 0, 12, 30 ); // offset from center
pivot.add( cube );
scene.add( pivot );
//...
pivot.rotation.y += Math.PI/2;
JSFiddle

Setting the projectionMatrix of a Perspective Camera in Three.js

I'm trying to set the ProjectionMatrix of a Three.js Perspective Camera to match a projection Matrix I calculated with a different program.
So I set the camera's position and rotation like this:
self.camera.position.x = 0;
self.camera.position.y = 0;
self.camera.position.z = 142 ;
self.camera.rotation.x = 0.0;// -0.032
self.camera.rotation.y = 0.0;
self.camera.rotation.z = 0;
Next I created a 4x4 Matrix (called Matrix4 in Three.js) like this:
var projectionMatrix = new THREE.Matrix4(-1426.149, -145.7176, -523.0170, 225.07519, -42.40711, -1463.2367, -23.6839, 524.3322, -0.0174, -0.11928, -0.99270, 0.43826, 0, 0, 0, 1);
and changed the camera's projection Matrix entries like this:
for ( var i = 0; i < 16; i++) {
self.camera.projectionMatrix.elements[i] = projectionMatrix.elements[i];
}
when I now render the scene I just get a black screen and can't see any of the objects I inserted. Turning the angle of the Camera doesn't help either. I still can't see any objects.
If I insert a
self.camera.updateProjectionMatrix();
after setting the camera's projection Matrix to the values of my projectionMatrix the camera is set back to the original Position (x=0,y=0,z=142 and looking at the origin where I created some objects) and the values I set in the camera's matrix seem to have been overwritten. I checked that by printing the cameras projection Matrix to the console. If I do not call the updateProjectionMatrix() function the values stay as I set them.
Does somebody have an idea how to solve this problem?
If I do not call the updateProjectionMatrix() function the values stay as I set them.
Correct, updateProjectionMatrix() calculates those 16 numbers you pasted in your projection matrix based on a bunch of parameters. Those parameters are, the position and rotation you set above, plus the parameters you passed (or default) for the camera. (these actually make the matrixWorld and its inverse.
In case of a perspective camera, you don't have much - near, far, fov and aspect. Left,right,top,bottom are derived from these, with an orthographic camera you set them directly. These are then used to compose the projection matrix.
Scratch a pixel has a REALLY good tutorial on this subject. The next lesson on the openGL projection matrix is actually more relevant to WebGL. left right top and bottom are made from your FOV and your aspect ratio. Add near and far and you've got yourself a projection matrix.
Now, in order for this thing to work, you either have to know what you're doing, or get really lucky. Pasting these numbers from somewhere else and getting it to work is short of winning the lottery. Best case scenario, you can have your scale all wrong and clipping your scene. Worst case, you've mixed a completely different matrix, different XYZ convention, and there's no way you'll get it to work, or at least make sense.
Out of curiosity, what are you trying to do? Are you trying to match your camera to a camera from somewhere else?

Spawn particle at edge of screen

I've searched far and wide, so if there's a similar question please forgive me but I just couldn't find it.
To put what I'm trying to do in context: I want to create an infinitely-generated field of stars that disappear as they go offscreen and reappear at the edge of the screen where the camera is moving. I'm working with a top-down view, so it must be pretty simple to achieve this, but alas I haven't a clue.
I'm using the following code to determine whether a star has gone off-screen and then replace it:
//update camera frustum
camera.projScreenMatrix.multiplyMatrices(
camera.projectionMatrix,
camera.matrixWorldInverse
);
camera.frustum.setFromMatrix(camera.projScreenMatrix);
//loop through stars
var stars=scene.stars.geometry.vertices;
for(var i=0;i<stars.length;i++) {
if(!camera.frustum.containsPoint(stars[i])) {
stars[i]=new THREE.Vector3(
// fill in the blank
);
scene.stars.geometry.verticesNeedUpdate=true;
}
}
Since I'm using a perspective camera, I know I'll need to somehow factor in camera.fov and other perspective elements, but as you can tell I'm no expert on the third dimension.
Assuming I have an angle or normalized vector telling me the direction the view is panning, how would I go about creating a vertex along the edge of the screen regardless of its Z position?
If I'm not clear enough, I'll be happy to clarify. Thanks.
I know this is an old question, but I came across it while looking for an answer and found a simple, trigonometry reliant method to get the left edge of the camera frustum, and I'm sharing it in case someone else might find it useful:
// Get half of the cameras field of view angle in radians
var fov = camera.fov / 180 * Math.PI / 2;
// Get the adjacent to calculate the opposite
// This assumes you are looking at the scene
var adjacent = camera.position.distanceTo( scene.position );
// Use trig to get the leftmost point (tangent = o / a)
var left = Math.tan( fov ) * adjacent * camera.aspect;
Basically, this gets the leftmost point, but if you don't multiply by the aspect ratio you should get a point in a circle around your camera frustum, so you could translate a point any direction away from the cameras focus and it would always be outside the frustum.
It works by assuming that the imaginary plane that is the camera is perpendicular to the line connecting the camera and its focus, so there is a straight angle. This should work if you want objects further away as well (so if you want them at a further point from the camera you just need to increase the distance between the focus and the camera).
Well, countless headaches and another question later, I've come up with a fairly makeshift answer. Just in case by some unlikely chance someone else has the same question, the following function plots a point on the scene relative to the camera's current view with whatever Z specified:
//only needs to be defined once
var projector=new THREE.Projector();
//input THREE.Vector3
function(vector) {
var z=vector.z;
vector.z=0;
projector.unprojectVector(vector,camera);
return camera.position.clone().add(
vector
.sub(camera.position)
.normalize()
.multiplyScalar(
-(camera.position.z-z)/vector.z
)
);
The x and y, in this case, both range from -1 to 1 for bottom-left to top-right. You can use position/window.Width and position/window.Height for extra precision (using mouse coordinates or what have you).

Three.js—rotation around arbitrary line

I am starting with Three.js so I might have misunderstood some basics of the concept. I have a usual 3d scene with a hierarchy like this:
.
+-container #(0,0,0) (Object3d, no own geometry)
+-child 1 #(1,1,1)
+-child 2 #(1, -2, 5)
+-child 3 #(-4, -2, -3)
.
.
. more should come
all »children« of the »container« are imported models from Blender. What I would like to do is to rotate the whole container around a pivot axis based on the current selection, which should be one of the children.
Image three cubes in Blender, all selected with the 3d cursor at center of first in location and center of transformation. A rotation transforms all cubes, but the rotation is relative to the first in selection.
In terms of three.js, what would like to do is to rotate the container, so that the rotation is applied to all children.
To do that I think that the following steps should do the trick:
create a matrix,
translate that matrix by the negative of the selected objects position
rotate that matrix
translate the matrix back to the selected objects position
apply the transform to the container
I have tried the following code but the result is just wrong:
var sp = selection.position.clone(),
m = new THREE.Matrix4();
selection.localToWorld(sp);
m.setPosition(sp.clone().negate());
//I've used makeRotationX for testing purposes, should be replaced with quaternion rotation later on…
m = m.multiply(new THREE.Matrix4().makeRotationX(2*180/Math.PI));
m = m.multiply(new THREE.Matrix4().makeTranslation(sp.x,sp.y,sp.z));
this._container.applyMatrix(m);
Thanks for help!
UPDATE
sign error—this works:
var sp = selection.position.clone(),
m = new THREE.Matrix4();
m.makeTranslation(sp.x,sp.y,sp.z);
m.multiply(new THREE.Matrix4().makeRotationX(0.1));
m.multiply(new THREE.Matrix4().makeTranslation(-sp.x,-sp.y,-sp.z));
this._container.applyMatrix(m);
BUT that code does not really look that good, creating three matrices for that single operating seems to bit of overhead, what is the usual »three.js-way«?
UPDATE #2
Due to the comment here is an image describing what I would like to do:
The »arrows« at the origin stand for the parent container and the cube, the sphere and the cone are its »children«. The red line shows the line I would like rotate the parent around, this way the rotation is applied to all children.
rotateOnAxis() takes a Vector as axis, so the line the objects rotates around crosses its origin.

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