Develop Reference

Meaning of this code snippet in three JS

As I am new in the 3D world and three JS world, I understood most of the things, but always gets confused when it comes to matrices.
What I am trying to do is that I want to drag a small object on top of other objects and small object should face the same direction of the main object (an example is like hanging a wall clock on the wall).
To do this, I first tried placing an axis helper on top of rotating cube and applied the simple logic that, an Intersecting point will give the position for putting a small object and intersecting objects face normal will give direction for small object lookAt. I did and found success but not appropriate.
Then I did some calculation and searched some codes for calculating the same things, I got success now. But didn't understand the whole logic behind, WHY we did this.
this.normalMatrix.getNormalMatrix(intersects[i].object.matrixWorld);
this.worldNormal.copy(intersects[i].face.normal).applyMatrix3(this.normalMatrix).normalize();
this.object.position.addVectors(intersects[i].point, this.worldNormal);
this.lookAtVec.addVectors(this.object.position,this.worldNormal.multiplyScalar(15));
this.object.lookAt(this.lookAtVec);
One guy actually created a wall and placed a small object on top. He changed this line
this.object.position.addVectors(intersects[i].point, this.worldNormal);
to
this.object.position.copy(intersects[i].point);
and it is working for him, but the same thing for my axis helper is not working.

Just an option of how you can do it. Look at the end of the onMouseMove() function:
var scene = new THREE.Scene();
var camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(60, window.innerWidth / window.innerHeight, 1, 1000);
camera.position.set(-3, 5, 8);
camera.lookAt(scene.position);
var renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer({
antialias: true
});
renderer.setSize(window.innerWidth, window.innerHeight);
renderer.setClearColor(0x404040);
document.body.appendChild(renderer.domElement);
var controls = new THREE.OrbitControls(camera, renderer.domElement);
var light = new THREE.DirectionalLight(0xffffff, 0.5);
light.position.setScalar(10);
scene.add(light);
scene.add(new THREE.AmbientLight(0xffffff, 0.5));
var walls = [];
makeWall(Math.PI * 0.5);
makeWall(0);
makeWall(Math.PI * -0.5);
var clockGeom = new THREE.BoxBufferGeometry(1, 1, 0.1);
clockGeom.translate(0, 0, 0.05);
var clockMat = new THREE.MeshBasicMaterial({
color: "orange"
});
var clock = new THREE.Mesh(clockGeom, clockMat);
scene.add(clock);
var raycaster = new THREE.Raycaster();
var mouse = new THREE.Vector2();
var intersects = [];
var lookAt = new THREE.Vector3();
renderer.domElement.addEventListener("mousemove", onMouseMove, false);
function onMouseMove(event) {
mouse.x = (event.clientX / window.innerWidth) * 2 - 1;
mouse.y = -(event.clientY / window.innerHeight) * 2 + 1;
raycaster.setFromCamera(mouse, camera);
intersects = raycaster.intersectObjects(walls);
if (intersects.length === 0) return;
clock.position.copy(intersects[0].point);
clock.lookAt(lookAt.copy(intersects[0].point).add(intersects[0].face.normal));
}
render();
function render() {
requestAnimationFrame(render);
renderer.render(scene, camera);
}
function makeWall(rotY, color) {
let geom = new THREE.BoxBufferGeometry(8, 8, 0.1);
geom.translate(0, 0, -4);
geom.rotateY(rotY);
let mat = new THREE.MeshLambertMaterial({
color: Math.random() * 0x777777 + 0x777777
});
let wall = new THREE.Mesh(geom, mat);
scene.add(wall);
walls.push(wall);
}
body {
overflow: hidden;
margin: 0;
}
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/three.js/94/three.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://threejs.org/examples/js/controls/OrbitControls.js"></script>

smooth terrain from height map three js

I am currently trying to create some smooth terrain using the PlaneBufferGeometry of three.js from a height map I got from Google Images:
https://forums.unrealengine.com/filedata/fetch?id=1192062&d=1471726925
but the result is kinda choppy..
(Sorry, this is my first question and evidently I need 10 reputation to post images, otherwise I would.. but here's an even better thing: a live demo! left click + drag to rotate, scroll to zoom)
I want, like i said, a smooth terrain, so am I doing something wrong or is this just the result and i need to smoothen it afterwards somehow?
Also here is my code:
const IMAGE_SRC = 'terrain2.png';
const SIZE_AMPLIFIER = 5;
const HEIGHT_AMPLIFIER = 10;
var WIDTH;
var HEIGHT;
var container = jQuery('#wrapper');
var scene, camera, renderer, controls;
var data, plane;
image();
// init();
function image() {
var image = new Image();
image.src = IMAGE_SRC;
image.onload = function() {
WIDTH = image.width;
HEIGHT = image.height;
var canvas = document.createElement('canvas');
canvas.width = WIDTH;
canvas.height = HEIGHT;
var context = canvas.getContext('2d');
console.log('image loaded');
context.drawImage(image, 0, 0);
data = context.getImageData(0, 0, WIDTH, HEIGHT).data;
console.log(data);
init();
}
}
function init() {
// initialize camera
camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(75, window.innerWidth / window.innerHeight, .1, 100000);
camera.position.set(0, 1000, 0);
// initialize scene
scene = new THREE.Scene();
// initialize directional light (sun)
var sun = new THREE.DirectionalLight(0xFFFFFF, 1.0);
sun.position.set(300, 400, 300);
sun.distance = 1000;
scene.add(sun);
var frame = new THREE.SpotLightHelper(sun);
scene.add(frame);
// initialize renderer
renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer();
renderer.setClearColor(0x000000);
renderer.setPixelRatio(window.devicePixelRatio);
renderer.setSize(window.innerWidth, window.innerHeight);
container.append(renderer.domElement);
// initialize controls
controls = new THREE.OrbitControls(camera, renderer.domElement);
controls.enableDamping = true;
controls.dampingFactor = .05;
controls.rotateSpeed = .1;
// initialize plane
plane = new THREE.PlaneBufferGeometry(WIDTH * SIZE_AMPLIFIER, HEIGHT * SIZE_AMPLIFIER, WIDTH - 1, HEIGHT - 1);
plane.castShadow = true;
plane.receiveShadow = true;
var vertices = plane.attributes.position.array;
// apply height map to vertices of plane
for(i=0, j=2; i < data.length; i += 4, j += 3) {
vertices[j] = data[i] * HEIGHT_AMPLIFIER;
}
var material = new THREE.MeshPhongMaterial({color: 0xFFFFFF, side: THREE.DoubleSide, shading: THREE.FlatShading});
var mesh = new THREE.Mesh(plane, material);
mesh.rotation.x = - Math.PI / 2;
mesh.matrixAutoUpdate = false;
mesh.updateMatrix();
plane.computeFaceNormals();
plane.computeVertexNormals();
scene.add(mesh);
animate();
}
function animate() {
requestAnimationFrame(animate);
renderer.render(scene, camera);
controls.update();
}

The result is jagged because the height map has low color depth. I took the liberty of coloring a portion of the height map (Paint bucket in Photoshop, 0 tolerance, non-continuous) so you can see for yourself how large are the areas which have the same color value, i.e. the same height.
The areas of the same color will create a plateau in your terrain. That's why you have plateaus and sharp steps in your terrain.
What you can do is either smooth out the Z values of the geometry or use a height map which utilizes 16bits or event 32bits for height information. The current height map only uses 8bits, i.e. 256 values.

One thing you could do to smooth things out a bit is to sample more than just a single pixel from the heightmap. Right now, the vertex indices directly correspond to the pixel position in the data-array. And you just update the z-value from the image.
for(i=0, j=2; i < data.length; i += 4, j += 3) {
vertices[j] = data[i] * HEIGHT_AMPLIFIER;
}
Instead you could do things like this:
get multiple samples with certain offsets along the x/y axes
compute an (weighted) average value from the samples
That way you would get some smoothing at the borders of the same-height areas.
The second option is to use something like a blur-kernel (gaussian blur is horribly expensive, but maybe something like a fast box-blur would work for you).
As you are very limited in resolution due to just using a single byte, you should convert that image to float32 first:
const highResData = new Float32Array(data.length / 4);
for (let i = 0; i < highResData.length; i++) {
highResData[i] = data[4 * i] / 255;
}
Now the data is in a format that allows for far higher numeric resolution, so we can smooth that now. You could either adjust something like the StackBlur for the float32 use-case, use ndarrays and ndarray-gaussian-filter or implement something simple yourself. The basic idea is to find an average value for all the values in those uniformly colored plateaus.
Hope that helps, good luck :)

BoxGeometry not aligning with SphereGeometry properly

I am trying to create spikes on earth(sphere geometry). Though everything works fines, but spikes dont align with globe. I want spike to align something like below image. But my spikes dont lookAt(new THREE.Vector3(0,0,0)) despite mentioned. Please help me out.
I purposefully mentioned code required for debugging. Let me know if you need more code for this. Below image is how i want my spikes to align with sphere.
But this is how it looks
My Main JS initialization file.
$(document).ready(function () {
// Initializing Camera
Influx.Camera = new Influx.Camera({
fov: 60,
aspectRatio: window.innerWidth / window.innerHeight,
near: 1,
far: 1000,
position: {
x: 0,
y: 0,
z: 750
}
});
//Initializing Scene
Influx.Scene = new Influx.Scene();
// Initializing renderer
Influx.Renderer = new Influx.Renderer({
clearColor: 0x000000,
size: {
width: window.innerWidth,
height: window.innerHeight
}
});
Influx.Globe = new Influx.Globe({
radius: 300,
width: 50,
height: 50
});
//
Influx.Stars = new Influx.Stars({
particleCount: 15000,
particle: {
color: 0xFFFFFF,
size: 1
}
});
Influx.moveTracker = new Influx.moveTracker();
Influx.EventListener = new Influx.EventListener();
(function animate() {
requestAnimationFrame( animate );
render();
controls.update();
})();
function render() {
camera.lookAt(scene.position);
group.rotation.y -= 0.001;
renderer.render( scene, camera );
};
});
Below is code responsible for generating spikes on Globe.
Influx.Spikes = function (lat, long) {
// convert the positions from a lat, lon to a position on a sphere.
var latLongToVector3 = function(lat, lon, RADIUS, heigth) {
var phi = (lat) * Math.PI/180,
theta = (lon-180) * Math.PI/180;
var x = -(RADIUS+heigth) * Math.cos(phi) * Math.cos(theta),
y = (RADIUS+heigth) * Math.sin(phi),
z = (RADIUS+heigth) * Math.cos(phi) * Math.sin(theta);
return new THREE.Vector3(x, y, z);
};
var geom = new THREE.Geometry();
var BoxGeometry = new THREE.BoxGeometry(1, 100, 1);
//iterates through the data points and makes boxes with the coordinates
var position = latLongToVector3(lat, long, 300, 2);
var box = new THREE.Mesh( BoxGeometry );
//each position axis needs to be set separately, otherwise the box
//will instantiate at (0,0,0)
box.position.x = position.x;
box.position.y = position.y;
box.position.z = position.z;
box.lookAt(new THREE.Vector3(0, 0, 0));
box.updateMatrix();
//merges the geometry to speed up rendering time, don't use THREE.GeometryUtils.merge because it's deprecated
geom.merge(box.geometry, box.matrix);
var total = new THREE.Mesh(geom, new THREE.MeshBasicMaterial({
color: getRandomColor(),
morphTargets: true
}));
function getRandomColor() {
var letters = '0123456789ABCDEF';
var color = '#';
for (var i = 0; i < 6; i++ ) {
color += letters[Math.floor(Math.random() * 16)];
}
return color;
};
//add boxes to the group
group.add(total);
scene.add(group);
};
Influx.Camera = function(params = {}) {
if ( !$.isEmptyObject(params) ) {
window.camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(params.fov, params.aspectRatio, params.near, params.far);
camera.position.set(params.position.x, params.position.y, params.position.z);
camera.lookAt(new THREE.Vector3(0,0,0));
} else {
console.log("Trouble with Initializing Camera");
return;
}
};

Remember that lookAt takes a direction vector, you give to this method the vector (0, 0, 0), this is actually not a normalized direction vector. So you must calculate the direction:
from your box position to the center of the sphere AND normalize it.
var dir = box.position.sub(world.position).normalize();
box.lookAt(dir);
And now just a set of code good conventions that may help you:
var BoxGeometry = new THREE.BoxGeometry(1, 100, 1);
Here I would rather use another var name for the box geometry, not to mix up with the "class" definition from THREE and to follow naming conventions:
var boxGeometry = new THREE.BoxGeometry(1, 100, 1);
And here:
box.position.x = position.x;
box.position.y = position.y;
box.position.z = position.z;
You can just set:
box.position.copy(position);

I also meet this problem, and I fixed it, the solution is: box.lookAt(new THREE.Vector3(0, 0, 0)) must after box.scale.z = xxxx

Why is this simple THREE.js javascript particle system not working?

Are there any errors is this code? I am using a new version of Chrome to test on. I've written a similar program that displays a wireframe cube, with no issues. It ran well. I'm thinking I may have written or structured my code incorrectly.
var scene = new THREE.Scene();
var camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(50,window.innerWidth/window.innerHeight, 1, 10000);
var renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer();
renderer.setSize(window.innerWidth, window.innerHeight);
document.body.appendChild(renderer.domElement);
// create the particle variables
var particleCount = 1000;
var particles = new THREE.Geometry();
var pMaterial = new THREE.ParticleBasicMaterial({
color: 'red',
size: 20
});
// create the individual particles
for (var p = 0; p < particleCount; p++) {
var pX = Math.random()*500 - 250;
var pY = Math.random()*500 - 250;
var pZ = Math.random()*500 - 250;
var particle = new THREE.Vertex(
new THREE.Vector3(pX, pY, pZ)
);
particles.vertices.push(particle);
}
// create the particle system
var particleSystem = new THREE.ParticleSystem(
particles,
pMaterial);
// add the particle system to the scene
scene.add(particleSystem);
function render() {
particleSystem.rotation.y += 0.01;
renderer.render(scene, camera);
requestAnimationFrame(render);
}
render();
I'm not seeing any results, so to speak - just a black canvas element on the page.

Your code looks outdated -- as if you copied something from the net, or from an outdated book.
Update to the current version of three.js, and learn from the current three.js examples.
Create your particles like so:
var particle = new THREE.Vector3( pX, pY, pZ );
Also, ParticleSystem is now PointCloud, and ParticleBasicMaterial is now PointCloudMaterial.
three.js r.69

Update height/radius of 3D Cylinder created with Three.js at runtime

Like we are changing height/width/depth of 3D cube at run time in this Fiddle:
http://jsfiddle.net/EtSf3/4/
How can we change the Radius and Length at runtime of Cylinder created using Three.js
Here is my code:
HTML:
<script src="http://www.html5canvastutorials.com/libraries/three.min.js"></script>
<div id="container"></div>
JS
//Script for 3D Cylinder
// revolutions per second
var angularSpeed = 0.2;
var lastTime = 0;
var cylinder = null;
// this function is executed on each animation frame
function animate() {
// update
var time = (new Date()).getTime();
var timeDiff = time - lastTime;
var angleChange = angularSpeed * timeDiff * 2 * Math.PI / 1000;
cylinder.rotation.x += angleChange;
cylinder.rotation.z += angleChange;
lastTime = time;
// render
renderer.render(scene, camera);
// request new frame
requestAnimationFrame(function () {
animate();
});
}
// renderer
var container = document.getElementById("container");
var renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer();
renderer.setSize(container.offsetWidth, container.offsetHeight);
container.appendChild(renderer.domElement);
// camera
var camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(50, window.innerWidth / window.innerHeight, 1, 1000);
camera.position.z = 700;
// scene
var scene = new THREE.Scene();
// cylinder
// API: THREE.CylinderGeometry(bottomRadius, topRadius, height, segmentsRadius, segmentsHeight)
cylinder = new THREE.Mesh(new THREE.CylinderGeometry(150, 150, 500, 100, 100, false), new THREE.MeshPhongMaterial({
// light
specular: '#cccccc',
// intermediate
color: '#666666',
// dark
emissive: '#444444',
shininess: 100
}));
cylinder.overdraw = true;
cylinder.rotation.x = Math.PI * 0.2;
//cylinder.rotation.y = Math.PI * 0.5;
scene.add(cylinder);
// add subtle ambient lighting
var ambientLight = new THREE.AmbientLight(0x444444);
scene.add(ambientLight);
// directional lighting
var directionalLight = new THREE.DirectionalLight(0xcccccc);
directionalLight.position.set(1, 1, 1).normalize();
scene.add(directionalLight);
// start animation
animate();
Here is the Fiddle for the same: http://jsfiddle.net/dpPjD/
Let me know if you need any other information.
Please suggest.

Once the object geometry is added to the mesh, it is converted to face/vertex/UV/normals and stored as part of the mesh. For example, the cylinder shape you have specified is tessellated (divided) by Three.js into triangles with a vertex count of more than 10,000.
Hence while the global mesh properties like transforms can be updated, updating the individual geometries is as good as creating a new geometry every animation-frame. If you happen to know precisely the vertices you need to modify, you can update it directly using the geometry.vertices property. But if not, I do not think there is a way.

You can try overwriting the geometry of an object by doing something like this:
cylinder.geometry.dispose();
cylinder.geometry = new THREE.CylinderGeometry(botRad, topRad, height, 32);
where: botRad, topRad and height are new values from initial or a variable that is constantly changing if you are planning on oscillating cylinder height.
The dispose makes sure that it deletes the previous geometry of the object before overwriting a new geometry to it.