threex.objcoord

threex.objcoord is a threex game extension for three.js which helps compute the object position in the various coordinates space. You can get .worldPosition of 3d objects, their .screenPosition or even their .cssPosition! So you can put any domElement on a 3d object and have it follow it. Like a name for your avatars. For example you can use it when you wanna display widgets or links on top of the characters in your game.

Show Don't Tell

examples/basic.html [view source] : It shows the basic of the module. Likely the first thing to look at.

A Screenshot

How To Install It

You can install it via script tag

<script src='threex.objcoord.js'></script>

Or you can install with bower, as you wish.

bower install threex.objcoord

How To Use It

The whole module is only 3 simple functions. But they are the kind you don't want to re-write over and over :)

THREEx.ObjCoord.worldPosition(object3d)

This function gives you the world position of a given THREE.Object3D. So it returns a THREE.Vector3 using your scene position as origin. This may be usefull to detect collision with the border of your game map for example.

var position	= THREEx.ObjCoord.worldPosition(object3d)
console.log(position)
// ... display the world position x,y,z of the object3d

THREEx.ObjCoord.screenPosition(object3d, camera)

this function gives your the screen coordinates of a given object3d. Screen coordinates is -1,-1 on top-left, and +1,+1 in bottom right of the screen. This may be usefull to know when a given position is no more on screen.

var position	= THREEx.ObjCoord.screenPosition	= function(object3d, camera){
console.log(position)
// ... display the position in screen coordinates of the object3d

THREEx.ObjCoord.cssPosition(object3d, camera, renderer)

Suppose you got a 3d object on your scene. And you want the css position matching the position of this object. Thus you can have any dom element following your 3d object in the webgl. This function does excatly this for you :)

Let's see how to use it. First let's create the dom element. Note the 'position: absolute;'

var element	= document.createElement('div')
document.body.appendChild(element)
element.innerHTML	= 'threex';
element.style.position	= 'absolute'

Now we compute the css position and update the element's style to make it match.

var position		= THREEx.ObjCoord.cssPosition(mesh, camera,renderer)
element.style.left	= (position.x-element.offsetWidth /2)+'px';
element.style.top	= (position.y-element.offsetHeight/2)+'px';

THREEx.ObjCoord.VisiblePlaneHeight(camera, distanceToCamera)

It returns the visible height in 3d of the plane facing the camera. See details in three.js width of view

THREEx.ObjCoord.VisiblePlaneWidth(camera, renderer, distanceToCamera)

It returns the visible width in 3d of the plane facing the camera. It needs the renderer to get screen aspect. See details in three.js width of view

Possible Improvements

add a better demo
- maybe many minecraft with some news on top
- put a widget with link to show html
- put a widget with round border too

jeromeetienne / threex.objcoord