How to get 2D size of 3D model in XNA? - c#

I have a 3D model loaded with model = Content.Load<Model>("cube") and i need to get the size of that object after it gets projected to the viewport.
I know that i can use Viewport.Project().But that works for a single point and what i need is a rectangle.Something i can draw a square brackets around.

I can think of a couple of ways of doing this. My suggestion would be to find an upper corner and a lower corner of the model, and project those onto the viewport.
You could do this using the BoundingSphere of the model's Meshes for example. If it's a cube, as above, you could just go through the vertices one by one (obviously after aligning to the camera). Using that, you could draw a rectangle in screen space that will at least encompass the entire model, but perhaps a greater area as well depending on the shape.

Related

Draw a triangle on a MapControl (UWP) 3d view

I need to draw a triangle on an Aerial3d view on a UWP MapControl to have some visual information for the user like to see if certain vector crosses mountains or tall buildings, ...
I have the origin Geopoint, the azimuth and the elevation from the horizontal plane. From this data, I can have also the final Geopoint and, I think, "the altitude" for the upper point of the triangle.
Azimuth and elevation can be changed anytime, so the triangle should be drawn as many times as needed.
MapPolygon, MapPolyline and such don't work in this case because lines should be drawn above and across the map and not stuck to it.
New MapControl MapElements such MapModel3D and MapElement3D are static objects so they don't work as well.
This is the idea:
You should be able to use a MapPolyline - it will correctly be drawn in 3D space if you specify an altitude reference system and have an altitude value set for each vertex. MapPolygon will always be drawn to the terrain.
You should also be able to use a MapElement3D to show a filled polygon as shown on your picture. Just create a model that's a simple triangle and position at the origin/heading. If the origin or heading change, the model can be updated quickly. If the elevation angle changes, you'll need to re-create the model, but for a simple triangle, this should be reasonably fast. I've seen examples of someone animating a bird model with the wings flapping and getting 2-3FPS, so while it won't necessarily be interactively tracking, it should be a pretty quick update.

Draw a one pixel line around square sprite

I have a 15 x 15 pixel box, that I draw several off in different colours using:
spriteBatch.Draw(texture, position, colour);
What I'd like to do is draw a one pixel line around the outside, in different colours, thus making it a 17 x 17 box, with (for example), a blue outline one pixel wide and a grey middle.
The only way I can think of doing it is to draw two boxes, one 17x17 in the outline colour, one 15x15 with the box colour, and layer them to give the appearance of an outline:
spriteBatch.Draw(texture17by17, position, outlineColour);
spriteBatch.Draw(texture15by15, position, boxColour);
Obviously the position vector would need to be modified but I think that gives a clear picture of the idea.
The question is: is there a better way?
You can draw lines and triangles using DrawUserIndexedPrimitives, see Drawing 3D Primitives using Lists or Strips on MSDN for more details. Other figures like rectangles and circles are constructed from lines, but you'll need to implement them yourself.
To render lines in 2D, just use orthographic projection which mirrors transformation matrix from SpriteBatch.
You can find a more complete example with the PrimitiveBatch class which encapsulates the logic of drawing in the example Primitives from XBox Live Indie Games.
Considering XNA can't draw "lines" like OpenGL immediate mode can, it is far more efficient to draw a spite with a pre-generated texture quad (2 triangles) than to draw additional geometry with dynamic texturing particularly when a single "line" each requiring 1 triangle; 2 triangles vs 4 respectfully. Less triangles and vertices in the former too.
So I would not try to draw a "thin" line using additional geometry that is trying to mimic lines around the outside of the other, instead continue with what you are doing - drawing 2 different sprites (each is a quad anyway)
Every object drawn in 3D is drawn using triangles. - Would you like to know more?

Scale a Plane to fit a Frustum or Grid Cell

I am attempting to create a function taking a plane in 3d space, and returning a plane which will fit in its entirety inside one section of a grid on the screen.
The grid on the screen is fixed and is defined by either divisions in X and Y, or by a set of lines across the screen.
The original plane can be any size or orientation on the screen, though it will never take the whole screen.
I am working in Unity3.5.2f2 with C#. I have posted this on SO as it is quite heavily math based as opposed to just Unity general knowledge. Ideally a solution will not use external libraries, though it is a possibility.
I have a few methods in mind and would appreciate any input;
Project the plane to screen space, get the min/max x and y values of the mesh, (bounding box), use this to calculate a scale xform (using difference in height/length of mesh to that of a screen division). Re-project into world space, after snapping two edges of the mesh to a selected division.
As the divisions are rectangular in nature, create several view frustums, and come up with some method of scaling/translating the plane in 3d space to fit the frustum.
Function prototype would be;
Plane adjustPlaneToFitScreens(Plane _plane)
Any thoughts?
I solved this issue using method 01. above. Unity provided several handy functions making the math easy, and calculating scaling and translation in pixel/screen space was far easier than in 3d space while having to take into account view angle / FOV.
There are issues with the re-projection into world after the scaling, but this particular application doesnt have the camera moving when viewing the scaled object, so the issues are not actually noticeable in black box

Viewport 3D WPF C# - Several Questions

what is the best way to position the Camera in a way that i can see what i paint in a certain region?
p.e. I'm painting a rectangle at around 300,400,2200. Where do i have to place the camera and which view do i have to set so that everything fits "in"?
Is there a trick or a special method or do i have to try it out with different camera positions?
There is no standard function that will position the camera this way because there are many options (think of different sides and rotations)
A trick you could use is:
Take the center of the MeshGeometry3D by using the Bounds property and add the normal vector several times to position the Camera.
Then use the normal vector of the plane, invert it and use it as the LookDirection for the camera.
How far you need to move the camera depends on the view angle of the camera. It can be calculated. Let me know if you want to know how (it will take me a little extra time)
More information can be found here too

Rotating part of an image in 3D space

Here's the setup: This is for an ecommerce art site where some paintings are canvas transfers. The painting wraps around the sides and top and bottom of the canvas. We have high-res images of the entire painting, but what we want to display is a quasi-3D representation of the image in which you can see how the sides of the painting wrap around the canvas. Here's a rough sketch of what I'm talking about:
My question is, how can I rotate an image in 3D space? The approach I think I'd like to take, is to cut off a portion of the top and side of the image, and rotate then in 3D and then stich it back on to the top and side to give it the 3D look. How do I go about about doing that? It can be done using any .Net technology (GDI+, WPF etc.).
In WPF using the ViewPort3D class you can create a cuboid which is 8x5x1 units. Create the image as a texture and then apply the texture to the front face (8x5) and the side faces (5x1) and the top and bottom faces (8x1) using texture coordinates. The front face coordinates should be: (1/9, 1/6), (8/9, 1/6), (1/9, 5/6) and (8/9, 5/6) for the front face, and from the nearest edge to those coordinates for the sides, e.g. for the left side: (0, 1/6), (1/9, 1/6), (0, 5/6) and (1/9, 5/6) for the left side.
Edit:
If you then want to be able to perform rotations on the 3D canvas model you can follow the advice here:
How can I do 3D transformation in WPF?
It looks like you're not needing to do real 3D, but only needing to fake it.
Chop off four strips along the top, bottom, left and right of the image. Toss the bottom and right (going by your sketch in the question). Scale and shear the strips (I'm not expert enough at .net/wpf to know how, but it can do it). The top would be scaled vertically by a factor of 0.5 (a guess - choose to fit the desired final 3D-looking image) and sheared horizontally. The result is composited onto the output image as the top side of the canvas. The left strip would be scaled horizontally and sheared vertically.
If the end user is to view the 3D canvas from different angles interactively, this method is probably faster than rendering an honest 3D model, which would have to do texture mapping and rasterizing the model into a final image, which amounts to doing the same math. The fun part is figuring out how to adjust the scaling and shearing parameters.
This page might be educational: http://www.idomaths.com/linear_transformation.php
and this could be useful reference http://en.csharp-online.net/GDIplus_Graphics_Transformation%E2%80%94Image_Transformation
I dont have any experience in this kind of stuff. But when i saw this question, the first thing comes to my mind is the funny Unicornify for SO.
In this making of article by balpha, he explained how the 2d unicorn sphere is rotated in 3d space.
But the code is written in python. If you are interested, you can take a look into that. But am not exactly sure this would help you.
The brute force approach (which might be the easiest approach), is to map the u,v texture coordinates for each of the three faces, onto three billboards representing three sides of the canvas (a billboard is just two triangles that make a rectangle). Then, rotate the whole canvas (all three billboards) using matrix transforms. Tada!
Alternately, you can move the 3-space camera position with a transform, rather than the canvas. Six of one, half the other - as they say.

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