Develop Reference

Javascript canvas draw line strange behavior using algorithm

There are plenty of examples on how to draw lines on canvas, in js.
But for only educational purposes i want to draw line using algorithm. basically method gets two Vector2 points, from them it finds middle point, then it continues like that recursively until minimum distance of 2 pixels is reached.
I have DrawPoint method to basically draw 1 point on canvas, and DrawLine method that does all the job.
For now I have 2 problems:
1: points are not colored red, as they should be.
2:
It doesnt look like a line.
For Vector2 i used "Victor.js" plugin, and it seems to be working well.
this is code i have:
JS:
var point2 = new Victor(100, 100);
var point3 = new Victor(150, 150);
DrawLine(point2, point3);
function DrawLine(vec0, vec1)
{
var point0 = new Victor(vec0.x, vec0.y);
var point1 = new Victor(vec1.x, vec1.y);
var dist = point1.distance(point0);
if (dist < 2)
return;
//this is how it should look like in c# var middlePoint = point0 + (point1 - point0)/2; But looks like i cant just divide by 2 using victor js because i can only divide vector by vector.
var middlePoint = point0.add(point1.subtract(point0).divide(new Victor(2,2)));
DrawPoint(middlePoint);
DrawLine(point0, middlePoint);
DrawLine(middlePoint, point1);
}
function DrawPoint(point){
var c = document.getElementById("screen");
var ctx = c.getContext("2d");
ctx.fillStyle = "FF0000";
ctx.fillRect(point.x, point.y, 3,1);
}
I really appreciate any help you can provide.

The victor.js documentation shows that most functions of Victors do not return new Victors, but operate on the current instance. In a way, v1.add(v2) is semantically more like v1 += v2 and not v1 + v2.
The problem is with calculating the midpoint. You could use the mix() method, which blends two vectors with a weight. You must clone() the Victor first, otherwise point0will be midofied:
var middlePoint = point0.clone().mix(point1, 0.5);
If you don't change the original Vectors, you don't need to create new instances of Victors from the arguments, you can use the arguments directly:
function DrawLine(point0, point1)
{
var dist = point1.distance(point0);
if (dist < 2) return;
var middlePoint = point0.clone().mix(point1, 0.5);
DrawPoint(middlePoint);
DrawLine(point0, middlePoint);
DrawLine(middlePoint, point1);
}
Finally, as Sven the Surfer has already said in a comment, "FF0000" isn't a valid colour. Use "#FF0000", note the hash mark, or one of the named web colours such as "crimson".

Repair normals on possibly bad .stl files

I am new to Three.js and have been assigned the task of trying to repair the normals on files that have been coming in occasionally that appear to be bad. We do not know if they are bad scans or possibly bad uploads. We are looking into the upload function, but also would like to try and repair them if possible. Can anyone provide any ideas or tips to repair the file or find the correct normals?
Below is the code where we grab the normals and how we grab them. NOTE: this code works fine generally, it is only a problem when the normals are bad. I am also attaching one of the files so you can see the types of normals and "bad file" I am dealing with. Get File here
We are also using VTK on the backend with C++, so a solution or idea using either of these is helpful.
my.geometry = geometry;
var front = new THREE.MeshPhongMaterial(
{color: 0xe2e4dc, shininess: 50, side: THREE.DoubleSide});
var mesh = [new THREE.Mesh(geometry, front)];
my.scene.add(mesh[0]);
my.objects.push(mesh[0]);
var rc = new THREE.Raycaster();
var modelData = {'objects': [mesh[0].id], 'id': mesh[0].id};
var normalFound = false;
for (var dy = 80; dy >= -80; dy = dy - 10) {
console.log('finding a normal on', 0, dy, -200);
rc.set(new THREE.Vector3(0, dy, -200), new THREE.Vector3(0, 0, 1));
var hit = rc.intersectObjects([mesh[0]]);
if (hit.length) {
my.normal = hit[0].face.normal.normalize();
console.log('normal', my.normal.z);
modelData['normal'] = my.normal;
if ((my.normal.z > 0.9 && my.normal.z < 1.1)) {
my.requireOrienteering = true;
modelData['arch'] = 'lower';
normalFound = true;
console.log('we have a lower arch');
} else if ((my.normal.z < -0.9 && my.normal.z > -1.1)) {
modelData['arch'] = 'upper';
normalFound = true;
console.log('we have an upper arch');
}
break;
}
}

Calculating the normals is an easy step. If you calculate the cross product of two vectors (geometrical one), you will get a vector, that is orthogonal to the two, you input. All you have to do now is normalize it, since normals should be normalised to not mess up lightning calculations.
For smooth surfaces, you have to calculate all normals on the point and average them. For flat surfaces each vertex has multiple normales (one for each surface).
In pseudo code it will look like this for quads:
foreach quad : mesh
foreach vertex : quad
vector1 = neighborVertex.pos - vertex.pos;
vector2 = otherNeighborVertex.pos - vertex.pos;
vertex.normal = normalize(cross(vector1, vector2));
end foreach;
end foreach;

VTK has a filter named vtkPolyDataNormals that you can run on your file to compute normals. You probably want to call ConsistencyOn(), NonManifoldTraversalOn(), and AutoOrientNormalsOn() before running it.
If you want point-normals (instead of per-cell normals) and your shape has sharp corners, you probably want to provide a feature angle with SetFeatureAngle() and call SplittingOn().

Create very soft shadows in three.js?

is it possible to create a very soft / very subtle shadow in three.js?
like on this pic?
everything I managed to do so far is this:
My Lights:
hemisphereLight = new THREE.HemisphereLight(0xaaaaaa,0x000000, 0.9);
ambientLight = new THREE.AmbientLight(0xdc8874, 0.5);
shadowLight = new THREE.DirectionalLight(0xffffff, 1);
shadowLight.position.set(5, 20, -5);
shadowLight.castShadow = true;
shadowLight.shadowCameraVisible = true;
shadowLight.shadowDarkness = 0.5;
shadowLight.shadow.camera.left = -500;
shadowLight.shadow.camera.right = 500;
shadowLight.shadow.camera.top = 500;
shadowLight.shadow.camera.bottom = -500;
shadowLight.shadow.camera.near = 1;
shadowLight.shadow.camera.far = 1000;
shadowLight.shadowCameraVisible = true;
shadowLight.shadow.mapSize.width = 4096; // default is 512
shadowLight.shadow.mapSize.height = 4096; // default is 512
and render:
renderer.shadowMapEnabled = true;
renderer.shadowMapSoft = true;
renderer.shadowMapType = THREE.PCFSoftShadowMap;
thanks you

You can soften shadows by setting radius like this:
var light = new THREE.PointLight(0xffffff, 0.2);
light.castShadow = true;
light.shadow.radius = 8;

I was curious about this too, so i played around with all possible vars i found. The first real change made this one at init:
shadowLight.shadow.mapSize.width = 2048; // You have there 4K no need to go over 2K
shadowLight.shadow.mapSize.height = 2048; // - || -
Then i tested something other and when i've set:
shadowLight = new THREE.DirectionalLight(0xffffff(COLOR), 1.75(NEAR should in this case under 2), 1000 (FAR should just be the range between light/floor)); the Shadows smothing more out when i set also my directional lights position the 250 with:
shadowLight.position.set( 100(X just for some side effects), 250(Y over the scene), 0(Z) );
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Delete the (VAR) parts before using!!!!!!!!!!
Then i change this value to the value of my floor width.
d = 1000;
shadowLight.shadow.camera.left = -d;
shadowLight.shadow.camera.right = d;
shadowLight.shadow.camera.top = d;
shadowLight.shadow.camera.bottom = -d;
because if you use this:
var helper = new THREE.CameraHelper( shadowLight.shadow.camera );
and put it also in render:
scenes.add( shadowLight, helper );
...you see the box of your light and it should be maxed to your scene width itself i think. Hope it helps someone out.

What you're looking at is called Ambient Occlusion. There are a few things already available to look at, and you can probably find more now that you know what to search for. For example: Ambient occlusion in threejs

Actually that is not Ambient Occlusion. AO is only the contact shadow between 2 meshes which are very close one to each other.
What you are looking for, those soft shadows, you can get them in 2 ways:
First one, the easier: creating lightmaps in the 3D software that you use to create your models. That is: baking the shadows (and ambient occlusion too, if you want, and even textures and materials) into 1 texture that you can use later in ThreeJS. BUT: you will not be able to move those objects later... or better said, you will be able to move them, but their shadows will remain in the objects where they were being projected when you baked the lightmap.
The other way is doing something as it is done in this example, but unfortunately I haven't been able to go through it yet and I don't know much about it:
http://helloracer.com/webgl/
Good luck with it! Regards.
EDIT: Sorry... the 2nd option, the one with the F1 car, is still a lightmap :( But that shadow is made to follow the car, so the effect is quite nice at the end. Here you have the shadow being used, it is all baked, not real-time calculated:
http://helloracer.com/webgl/obj/textures/Shadow.jpg

I think drei is a good solution of soft shadow
https://github.com/pmndrs/drei#softshadows

How to connect objects with Bezier-like curves using Paper.js

I have a web app prototype where nodes similar to Blender shader editor are connected to each other. I am using Paper.js framework
I want them to be connected using those smooth Bezier-like curves. So I have 2 shapes and I can connect them by making a straight line, but now I want to have handles at the endpoints that smooth these objects out, kinda like this:
So 2 handles on endpoints, pointing horizontally for half the bounding box of the path.
The problem is I can't figure out how to add and edit those handles using Paper.js
The code I have is this:
function makeRectangle(topLeft, size, cornerSize, colour){
var rectangle = new Rectangle(topLeft, size);
var cornerSize = cornerSize;
var path = new Path.RoundRectangle(rectangle, cornerSize);
path.fillColor = colour;
return path;
}
var xy1 = new Point(50,50); //Position of 1st rectangle.
var size = new Size(100, 80); //Size
var c = new Size(8,8); //Corner radius
var col = "#167ee5"; //Colour
var r1 = makeRectangle(xy1, size, c, col); //Make first rectangle
var xy2 = new Point(467,310); //Position of second rectangle
var size2 = new Size(115, 70); //Size of second rectangle
var r2 = makeRectangle(xy2, size2, c, col); //Make secont rectangle
var r1cent = r1.bounds.center; //Get the center points, they will be used as endpoints for the curve.
var r2cent = r2.bounds.center;
var connector = new Path(r1cent, r2cent); //Ok so I made this path... Now what? How do access and edit the handlers at endpoints like in the image?
connector.strokeColor = 'black'; //Give it some colour so we can see it.
You can paste all this code here without any setup, it's a good way to test the framework.

You can use Segment objects when defining the connector rather than using Points (or you can set the handleIn and handleOut properties after creating the path).
The doc is here: Segment
And here is a sketch showing how to use handleIn and handleOut with your code:
sketch.paperjs.org solution

Trying to workout how to use quaternions to rotate a camera that is moving along a path to look in new direction vector

I am trying to rotate the camera smoothly and without altering the y-vector of the camera direction, i can use look at, and it changes the camera direction in a flash, but this is not working for me, I would like a smooth transition as the direction of the camera changes. I have been reading up, and not understanding everything, but it seems to me that quaternions are the solution to this problem.
I have this.object (my camera) moving along a set path (this.spline.points). The location of the camera at any one time is (thisx,thisy, thisz)
I have cc[i] the direction vector for the direction I would like the camera to face (formerly I was using lookat(cc[i]) which changes the direction correctly, but too quickly/instantaneously)
Using info I have read, I have tried this below, and it just resulted in the screen going black at the point when the camera is due to move.
Could anyone please explain if I am on the right track, how to correct my code.
Thanks
var thisx = this.object.matrixWorld.getPosition().x.toPrecision(3);
var thisy = this.object.matrixWorld.getPosition().y.toPrecision(3);
var thisz = this.object.matrixWorld.getPosition().z.toPrecision(3);
var i = 0;
do {
var pathx = this.spline.points[i].x.toPrecision(3);
var pathz = this.spline.points[i].z.toPrecision(3);
if (thisx == pathx && thisz == pathz){
this.object.useQuaternion = true;
this.object.quaternion = new THREE.Quaternion(thisx, thisy, thisz, 1);
var newvect;
newvect.useQuaternion = true;
newvect.quaternion = new THREE.Quaternion(thisx+cc[i].x, thisy+cc[i].y, thisz+cc[i].z, 1);
var newQuaternion = new THREE.Quaternion();
THREE.Quaternion.slerp(this.object.quaternion, newvect.quaternion, newQuaternion, 0.5);
this.object.quaternion = newQuaternion;
//this.object.lookAt( cc[i]);
i = cc.length;
} else i++;
} while(i < cc.length);

There is no need to call this.object.useQuaternion = true. That is default behavior.
Also, this.object.quaternion contains the current rotation, so no need to generate that either.
You might want to try a different approach - construct the rotation matrix from the spline position, lookAt and up vectors, creating a path of quaternions as a preprocessing step:
var eye = this.spline.points[i].clone().normalize();
var center = cc[i].normalize();
var up = this.object.up.normalize();
var rotMatrix = new THREE.Matrix4().lookAt(eye, center, up);
You could then create the quaternions from the rotation matrix:
var quaternionAtSplineCoordinates = [];
quaternionAtSplineCoordinates.push(new THREE.Quaternion().setFromRotationMatrix(rotMatrix));
Once you have that path, you could apply the quaternion to the camera in your animation loop - provided you have a large enough number of samples. Otherwise, you could consider using slerp to generate the intermediate points.