Setting the coordinate system for drawing in OpenGL - c++

I just started reading initial chapters of Blue book and got to understand that the projection matrix can be used to modify the mapping of our desired coordinate system to real screen coordinates. It can be used to reset the coordinate system and change it from -1 to 1 on left, right, top and bottom by the following (as an example)
glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
glLoadIdentity(); //With 1's in the diagonal of the identity matrix, the coordinate system is rest from -1 to 1 (and the drawing should happen then inside those coordinates which be mapped later to the screen)
Another example: (Width: 1024, Height: 768, Aspect Ratio: 1.33) and to change the coordinate system, do:
glOrtho (-100.0 * aspectRatio, 100.0 * aspectRatio, -100.0, 100.0, 100.0, 1000.0);
I expected the coordinate system for OpenGL to change to -133 on left, 133 on right, -100 on bottom and 100 on top. Using these coordinates, I understand that the drawing will be done inside these coordinate and anything outside these coordinates will be clipped.
glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
glLoadIdentity();
glOrtho(-100 * aspectRatio, 100 * aspectRatio, -100, 100, 100, 1000);
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
glRectf(-50.0, 50.0, 200, 100);
However, the above command doesn't give me any output on the screen. What am I missing here?

I see two problems here:
The rect should not by show at all, since glRectf() draws at depth z=0, but you set up your orthorgraphic projection to cover the z range [100,1000], so the object lies before the near plane and should be clipped away.
You do not specifiy waht MODELVIEW matrix you use. In the comments, you mention that the object does show up, but not in the place where you expect it. This also violates my first point, but could be explained if the ModelView matrix is not identity.
So I suggest to first use a different projection matrix with like glOrtho(..., -1.0f, 1.0f); so that z=0 is actually covered, and second insert a glLoadIdentity() call after the glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW) in the above code.
Another approach would be to keep the glOrtho() as it is and to specify a translation matrix wich moves the rect somewhere between z=100 and z=1000.

Related

Z value always 1 or -1 when using `glm::perspective`

I'm trying to teach myself the ways for 3D programming with OpenGL, however I am struggling with some things, especially projection matrices.
I defined some vertices for a cube and successfully handed them to my graphics processor. The cube goes from xyz -0.5 to xyz 0.5 respectively, which gets rendered fine.
To move it into my world coordinate system, I am using this model matrix:
auto model = glm::mat4(
glm::vec4(1, 0, 0, 0),
glm::vec4(0, 1, 0, 0),
glm::vec4(0, 0, 1, 0),
glm::vec4(0, 0, 0, 1)
);
model = glm::translate(model, glm::vec3(0.f, 0.f, 495.f));
model = glm::scale(model, glm::vec3(100.f, 100.f, 100.f));
This successfully moves my cube to (-50, -50, 445) -> (50, 50, 545) so its now centered in the 200x200x1000 world coordinates I defined for myself.
My camera / view matrix is
auto view = glm::lookAt(
glm::vec3(0.f, 0.f, 5.f),
glm::vec3(0.f, 0.f, 0.f),
glm::vec3(0.f, 1.f, 0.f)
);
which moves the cube slightly closer, changing the z coordinate to 440 and 540 respectively. I don't understand why this is happening but I guess it has something to do with glm expecting a right hand coordinate system while I am working with a left handed one? While this is not why I am posting this question, I would be happy if someone would clear it up for me.
Now to my actual problem: I am trying to make use of glm::perspective. I call it like this:
auto perspective = glm::perspective(glm::radians(55.f), 1.f, 0.f, 1000.f);
If I'm not mistaken, at a z value of 440 I can expect the clipping area to go from roughly -229 to 229, so I would expect that bottom right cube vertex at (-50,-50) is visible. I calculated this by drawing the frustum in 2D, when I noticed that I should be able to calculate the height of any distance to the camera using tan(alpha / 2) * distToCamera = maxVisibleCoordinate (working with a 1:1 aspect ratio). Is this a correct assumption? Here is my terrible drawing, maybe you can tell that I have a wrong understanding of something with it:
In the final step I am trying to get all this together in my vertex shader using
gl_Position = projection * view * model * vec4(pos.x, pos.y, pos.z, 1.0);
which yields a perfectly reasonable result for the x and y value but the z value is always -1 which is, as far as I know, just right for not being displayed.
For my front-bottom-left vertex of the cube (-0.5, -0.5, -0.5) the result is (-96.04, -96.04, -440, -440), normalized to (-0.218, -0.218, -1).
For my back-top-right vertex of the cube (0.5, 0.5, 0.5) the result is (96.04, 96.04, -550, -550), normalized to (0.218, 0.218, -1).
What am I getting wrong, that my z value is lost and just set to -1 instead? When playing around with the camera position, the best I can get is getting it to 1, which also results in an empty window and is definitely not what I would expect.
A projection matrix is like this:
In the picture, f is for zfar and n is for znear.
As you can see, if you put znear = 0, the term at the 4th column become zero, which is incorrect. Also, -(f+n)/(f-n) = -1, which is incorrect too.
So, the conclusion is, znear cannot be zero. It is usually a small value, for example, 0.1
Since Amadeus already answered the question correctly, I'm going to just use this space to add some clarifying information about why it's correct.
We can refer back to the diagram you provided to explain what the problem is: You have two planes, the near plane and the far plane, representing the range at which you may view objects. What the Perspective Matrix does is it takes everything in between those two planes, within the Frustrum that you've defined (mathematically a cone, but our monitors are rectangular, so...) and maps them onto the flat Near-plane to create the final image. In a sense, you can think of the Near Plane as representing the monitor.
So given this context, if you were to set the Near Plane's distance to 0, meaning it was identical to the camera, what would happen? Well, in a cone it would set the plane to a single point, and in a frustrum, it's the same. You cannot view objects drawn onto a single point. You need a surface with actual surface area to draw onto.
That is why it is inappropriate to set the near value to 0. It would turn the drawing surface into a single point, and you cannot mathematically render any objects on a single point. Hence why the essential mathematical formulas backing the matrix will break down and result in bad outcomes if you try to do so anyways.

How to map object coordinate to the screen in OpenGL?

I am not able to understand the correct way of transforming primitive coordinate values to the screen coordinates.
If I use the following code (where w and h are width and height of my window 640 X 480)
glViewport(0,0,w,h);
// set up the projection matrix
glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
// clear any previous transform and set to the identity matrix
glLoadIdentity();
// just use an orthographic projection
glOrtho(0,w,h,0,1,-1);
and my primitives are
glBegin(GL_TRIANGLES);
glColor3f(1,0,0);
glVertex3f(-10,-10,0);
glColor3f(0,1,0);
glVertex3f(10,-10,0);
glColor3f(0,0,1);
glVertex3f(0,10,0);
glEnd();
The triangle becomes too big to fit the window. Most of the tutorials have the primitives in the range[-1,1] and their ortho projection between [-1,1], so the triangle comes correctly at the centre.
So, if the coordinates are generated by a 3rd party software (or lies above the range [-1,1], how would I transform them correctly so that the coordinates fit the screen?

Proper gluLookAt for gluCylinder

I'm trying to draw a cylinder in a specific direction with gluCylinder. To specify the direction I use gluLookAt, however, as so many before me, I am not sure about the "up" vector and thus can't get the cylinder to point to the correct direction.
I've read from another SO answer that
The intuition behind the "up" vector in gluLookAt is simple: Look at anything. Now tilt your head 90 degrees. Where you are hasn't changed, the direction you're looking at hasn't changed, but the image in your retina clearly has. What's the difference? Where the top of your head is pointing to. That's the up vector.
It is a simple explanation but in the case of my cylinder I feel like the up vector is totally unimportant. Since a cylinder can be rotated around its axis and still look the same, a different up vector wouldn't change anything. So there should be infinitely many valid up vectors for my problem: all orthogonals to the vector from start point to end point.
So this is what I do:
I have the world coordinates of where the start-point and end-point of the cylinder should be, A_world and B_world.
I project them to viewport coordinates A_vp and B_vp with gluProject:
GLdouble A_vp[3], B_vp[3], up[3], model[16], projection[16];
GLint gl_viewport[4];
glGetDoublev(GL_MODELVIEW_MATRIX, &model[0]);
glGetDoublev(GL_PROJECTION_MATRIX, &projection[0]);
glGetIntegerv(GL_VIEWPORT, gl_viewport);
gluProject(A_world[0], A_world[1], A_world[2], &model[0], &projection[0], &gl_viewport[0], &A_vp[0], &A_vp[1], &A_vp[2]);
gluProject(B_world[0], B_world[1], B_world[2], &model[0], &projection[0], &gl_viewport[0], &B_vp[0], &B_vp[1], &B_vp[2]);
I call glOrtho to reset the camera to its default position: Negative z into picture, x to the right, y up:
glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
glLoadIdentity();
glOrtho(0, vp_edgelen, vp_edgelen, 0, 25, -25);
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
glLoadIdentity();
I translate to coordinate A_vp, calculate the up vector as the normal to the vector A_vp — B_vp and specify the view with gluLookAt:
glTranslatef(A_vp[0], gl_viewport[2] - A_vp[1], A_vp[2]);
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
GLdouble[] up = {A_vp[1] * B_vp[2] - A_vp[2] * B_vp[1],
A_vp[2] * B_vp[0] - A_vp[0] * B_vp[2],
A_vp[0] * B_vp[1] - A_vp[1] * B_vp[0]};
gluLookAt(0, 0, 0,
B_vp[0], gl_viewport[2] - B_vp[1], B_vp[2],
up[0], up[1], up[2]);
I draw the cylinder with gluCylinder:
GLUquadricObj *gluCylObj = gluNewQuadric();
gluQuadricNormals(gluCylObj, GLU_SMOOTH);
gluQuadricOrientation(gluCylObj, GLU_OUTSIDE);
gluCylinder(gluCylObj, 10, 10, 50, 10, 10);
Here is the unexpected result:
Since the cylinder starts at the correct position and since I was able to draw a circle at position B_vp, the only thing that must be wrong is the "up" vector in gluLookAt, right?
gluLookAt() is not necessary to achieve the proper perspective. It is enough to rotate the current z-vector to point to the direction the cylinder should point.

Understanding the window coordinates' interpretation in OpenGL

I was trying to understand OpenGL a bit more deep and I got stuck with below issue.
This segment describes my understanding, and the outputs are as assumed.
glViewport(0, 0 ,800, 480);
glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
glLoadIdentity();
glFrustum(-400.0, 400.0, -240.0, 240.0, 1.0, 100.0);
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
glLoadIdentity();
glTranslatef(0, 0, -1);
glRotatef(0, 0, 0, 1);
glBegin(GL_QUADS);
glVertex3f(-128, -128, 0.0f);
glVertex3f(128, -128, 0.0f);
glVertex3f(128, 128, 0.0f);
glVertex3f(-128, 128, 0.0f);
glEnd();
The window coordinates (Wx, Wy, Wz) for the above snippet are
(272.00000286102295, 111.99999332427979, 5.9604644775390625e-008)
(527.99999713897705, 111.99999332427979, 5.9604644775390625e-008)
(527.99999713897705, 368.00000667572021, 5.9604644775390625e-008)
(272.00000286102295, 368.00000667572021, 5.9604644775390625e-008)
I did a glReadPixels() and dumped to a bmp file. In the image I get a quad as expected with the (Wx, Wy) mentioned above ( since incase of images, the origin is at the top left, while verifying the bmp image I took care of subtracting the the window height i.e 480). This output was as per my understanding - (Wx, Wy) will be used as a 2D coordinate and Wz will be used for depth purpose.
Now comes the issue. I tried the below code snippet.
glViewport(0, 0 ,800, 480);
glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
glLoadIdentity();
glFrustum(-400.0, 400.0, -240.0, 240.0, 1.0, 100.0);
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
glLoadIdentity();
glTranslatef(100, 0, -1);
glRotatef(30, 0, 1, 0);
glBegin(GL_QUADS);
glVertex3f(-128, -128, 0.0f);
glVertex3f(128, -128, 0.0f);
glVertex3f(128, 128, 0.0f);
glVertex3f(-128, 128, 0.0f);
glEnd()
The window coordinates for the above snippet are
(400.17224205479812, 242.03174613770986, 1.0261343689191909)
(403.24386530741430, 238.03076912806583, 0.99456100555566640)
(403.24386530741430, 241.96923087193414, 0.99456100555566640)
(400.17224205479812, 237.96825386229017, 1.0261343689191909)
When I dumped output to a bmp file, I expected to have a very small parallelogram(approx like a 4 x 4 square transformed to a parallelogram) based on the above (Wx, Wy). But this was not the case. The image had a different set of coordinates as below
(403, 238)
(499, 113)
(499, 366)
(403, 241)
I have mentioned the coordinates in CW direction as seen on the image.
I got lost here. Can anyone please help in understanding what and why it is happening in the 2nd case??
How come I got a point (499, 113) on the screen when it was no where in the calculated window coordinates?
I used gluProject() to the window coordinates.
Note : I'm using OpenGL 2.0. I'm just trying to understand the concepts here, so please don't suggest to use versions > OpenGL 3.0.
edit
This is an update for the answer posted by derhass
The homogenous coordinates after the projection matrix for the 2nd case is as follows
(-0.027128123630699719, -0.53333336114883423, -66.292930483818054, -63.000000000000000)
(0.52712811245482882, -0.53333336114883423, 64.292930722236633, 65.00000000000000)
(0.52712811245482882, 0.53333336114883423, 64.292930722236633, 65.000000000000000)
(-0.027128123630699719, 0.53333336114883423, -66.292930483818054, 63.000000000000000)
So here for the vertices where z > -1, the vertices will get clipped at the near plane. When this is the case, shouldn't GL use the projected point at z = -1 plane?
The thing you are missing here is clipping.
After this
glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
glLoadIdentity();
glFrustum(-400.0, 400.0, -240.0, 240.0, 1.0, 100.0);
you basically have a camera at origin, looking along the -z direction, and the near plane at z=-1, the far plane at z=-100. Now you draw a 128x128 square rotated at 30 degrees aliong the y (up) axis, and shifted by -1 along z (and 100 along x, but that is not the crucial point here). Since You rotated the square around its center point, the z value for two of the points will be way before the near plane, while the other two should fall into the frustum. (And you can also see that as those two points match your expectations).
Now directly projecting all 4 points to window space is not what GL does. It transforms the points to clip space, intersects the primitives with all 6 sides of the viewing frustum and finally projects the clipped primitives into window space for rasterization.
The projection you did is actually only meaningful for points which lie inside the frustum. Two of your points lie behind the camrea, and projecting points behind the camera will create an mirrored image of these points in front of the camera.

Rotation of camera used for perspective projection

I've just started playing with OpenGl to render a number of structure each comprising a number of polygon.
Basically I want to perform the equivalent of setting a camera at (0,0,z) in the world (structure) coordinates and rotate it about the x,y and z-axes of the world axes (in that order!) to render a view of each structure (as I understand it it common practice to do use the inverse camera matrix). Thus as I understand it I need to translate (to world origin i.e. (0,0,-z)) * rotateZrotateYrotateX * translate (re-define world origin see below)
So I think I need something like:
//Called when the window is resized
void handleResize(int w, int h) {
glViewport(0, 0, w, h);
glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
glLoadIdentity();
gluPerspective(9.148, (double)w / (double)h, 800.0, 1500.0);
}
float _Zangle = 10.0f;
float _cameraAngle = 90.0f;
//Draws the 3D scene
void drawScene() {
glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW); //Switch to the drawing perspective
glLoadIdentity(); //Reset the drawing perspective
glTranslatef(0.0f, 0.0f, -z); //Move forward Z (mm) units
glRotatef(-_Zangle, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f); //Rotate "camera" about the z-axis
glRotatef(-_cameraAngle, 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); //Rotate the "camera" by camera_angle about y-axis
glRotatef (90.0f,1.0f,0.0f,0.0f); // rotate "camera" by 90 degrees about x-axis
glTranslatef(-11.0f,189.0f,51.0f); //re-define origin of world coordinates to be (11,-189,-51) - applied to all polygon vertices
glPushMatrix(); //Save the transformations performed thus far
glBegin(GL_POLYGON);
glVertex3f(4.91892,-225.978,-50.0009);
glVertex3f(5.73534,-225.978,-50.0009);
glVertex3f(6.55174,-225.978,-50.0009);
glVertex3f(7.36816,-225.978,-50.0009);
.......// etc
glEnd();
glPopMatrix();
However when I compile and run this the _angle and _cameraAngle seem to be reversed i.e. _angle seems to rotate about y-axis (Vertical) of Viewport and _cameraAngle about z-axis (into plane of Viewport)? What am I doing wrong?
Thanks for taking the time to read this
The short answer is: Use gluLookAt(). This utility function creates the proper viewing matrix.
The longer answer is that each OpenGL transformation call takes the current matrix and multiplies it by a matrix built to accomplish the transformation. By calling a series of OpenGL transformation function you build one transformation matrix that will apply the combination of transformations. Effectively, the matrix will be M = M1 * M2 * M3 . . . Mathematically, the transformations are applied from right to left in the above equation.
Your code doesn't move the camera. It stays at the origin, and looks down the negative z-axis. Your transformations move everything in model space to (11,-189,-51), rotates everything 90 degrees about the x-axis, rotates everything 90 degrees about the y-axis, rotates everything 10 degrees about the z-axis, then translates everything -z along the z-axis.
EDIT: More information
I'm a little confused about what you want to accomplish, but I think you want to have elements at the origin, and have the camera look at those elements. The eye coordinates would be where you want the camera, and the center coordinates would be where you want the objects to be. I'd use a little trigonometry to calculate the position of the camera, and point it at the origin.
In this type of situation I usually keep track of camera position using longitude, latitude, and elevation centered on the origin. Calculating x,y,z for the eye coordinates is simplyx = elv * cos(lat) * sin(lon), y = elv * sin(lat), z = elv * cos(lat) * cos(lat).
My gluLookAt call would be gluLookAt(x, y, z, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0);
You could rotate the up on the camera by changing the last three coordinates for gluLookAt.
The z axis is coming from the center of the monitor into you. So, rotating around the z-axis should make the camera spin in place (like a 2D rotation on just the xy plane). I can't tell, but is that what's happening here?
It's possible that you are encountering Gimbal Lock. Try removing one of the rotations and see if things work the way they should.
While it's true that you can't actually move the camera in OpenGL, you can simulate camera motion by moving everything else. This is why you hear about the inverse camera matrix. Instead of moving the camera by (0, 0, 10), we can move everything in the world by (0, 0, -10). If you expand those out into matrices, you will find that they are inverses of each other.
I also noticed that, given the code presented, you don't need the glPushMatrix()/glPopMatrix() calls. Perhaps there is code that you haven't shown that requires them.
Finally, can you provide an idea of what it is you are trying to render? Debugging rotations can be hard without some context.
Short answer :Good tip
Longer answer: Yes the order of matrix multiplication is clear... that's what I meant by inverse camera matrix to indicate moving all the world coordinates of structures into the camera coordinates (hence the use of "camera" in my comments ;-)) instead of actually translating and rotating camera into the world coordinates.
So if I read between the lines correctly you suggest something like:
void drawScene() {
glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW); //Switch to the drawing perspective
glLoadIdentity(); //Reset the drawing perspective
gluLookAt(0.0,0.0,z,11.0,-189.0,-51.0,0.0,1.0,0.0); //eye(0,0,z) look at re-defined world origin(11,-189,-51) and up(0.0,1.0,0.0)
glRotatef(-_Zangle, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f); //Rotate "camera" (actually structures) about the z-axis
glRotatef(-_cameraAngle, 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); //Rotate the "camera" (actually structures!) by camera_angle about y-axis
glRotatef (90.0f,1.0f,0.0f,0.0f); // rotate "camera" (actually structures) by 90 degrees about x-axis
glPushMatrix();
Or am I still missing something?
I think you are mixing axes of your world with axes of the camera,
GLRotatef only uses axes of the camera, they are not the same as your the world axes once the camera is rotated.