Ray picking with gluUnProject() - opengl

I have a quad on the y = -50 plane. At the moment, all I want to do is obtain the coordinates of a mouse click on the quad. I've managed to do this to a limited extent. The problem is that the transformations I applied when drawing the quad aren't accounted for. I can add in some constants and make it work, but I let the user rotate the scene about the x and y axes with glRotatef(), so the coordinates get messed up as soon as a rotation happens.
Here's what I'm doing now:
I call gluUnProject() twice, once with z = 0, and once with z = 1.
gluUnProject( mouseX, WINDOW_HEIGHT - mouseY, 0, modelView, projection, viewport, &x1, &y1, &z1);
gluUnProject( mouseX, WINDOW_HEIGHT - mouseY, 1, modelView, projection, viewport, &x2, &y2, &z2);
Normalized ray vector:
x = x2 - x1;
y = y2 - y1;
z = z2 - z1;
mag = sqrt(x*x + y*y + z*z);
x /= mag;
y /= mag;
z /= mag;
Parametric equation:
float t = -(camY) / y;
planeX = camX + t*x;
planeY = camY + t*y;
planeZ = camZ + t*z;
where (camX, camY, camZ) is the camera position passed to gluLookAt().
I want planeX, planeY, and planeZ to be the coordinates of the click on the quad, in the same coordinate system I used to draw the quad. How can I achieve this?

You are not supposed to pass in an explicit z-depth of your choosing. In order to find the world coordinate, you need to pass in the depth buffer value at that particular mouse coordinate.
GLfloat depth;
glReadPixels(x, y, 1, 1, GL_DEPTH_COMPONENT, GL_FLOAT, &depth);
Passing that into your gluUnProject should yield the values you are looking for. Plus, as genpfault said in his comment, make sure you are grabbing the model view matrix data at the right moment. Otherwise, you have the wrong matrix.

Related

OpenGL circle radius issue when drawing square

I have a function that draws a circle.
glBegin(GL_LINE_LOOP);
for(int i = 0; i < 20; i++)
{
float theta = 2.0f * 3.1415926f * float(i) / float(20);//get the current angle
float rad_x = ratio*(radius * cosf(theta));//calculate the x component
float rad_y = radius * sinf(theta);//calculate the y component
glVertex2f(x + rad_x, y + rad_y);//output vertex
}
glEnd();
This works dandy. I save the x, y and radius values in my object.
However when I try and draw a square with the following function call:
newSquare(id, red, green, blue, x, (x + radius), y, (y + radius));
I get the following image.
As you see, the square is nearly double as wide (looks more like the diameter). The following code is how I create my square box. As you can see it starts in the center of the circle in which it should. And should stretch out to the edge of the circle.
glBegin(GL_QUADS);
glVertex2f(x2, y2);
glVertex2f(x2, y1);
glVertex2f(x1, y1);
glVertex2f(x1, y2);
glEnd();
I can't seem to understand why this is!
If you're correcting the x-position for one object, you have to do it for all others as well.
However, if you continue this, you'll get into trouble very soon. In your case, only the width of objects is corrected but not their positions. You can solve all your problems by setting an orthographic projection matrix and you won't ever need to correct positions again. E.g. like so:
glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION); //switch to projection matrix
glOrtho(-ratio, ratio, -1, 1, -1, 1);
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW); //switch back to model view
where
ratio = windo width / window height
This constructs a coordinate system where the top edge has y=1, the bottom edge y=-1 and the left and right sides have x=-ratio and x=ratio, respectively.

Picking Ray is inaccurate

I'm trying to implement a picking ray via instructions from this website.
Right now I basically only want to be able to click on the ground to order my little figure to walk towards this point.
Since my ground plane is flat , non-rotated and non-translated I'd have to find the x and z coordinate of my picking ray when y hits 0.
So far so good, this is what I've come up with:
//some constants
float HEIGHT = 768.f;
float LENGTH = 1024.f;
float fovy = 45.f;
float nearClip = 0.1f;
//mouse position on screen
float x = MouseX;
float y = HEIGHT - MouseY;
//GetView() returns the viewing direction, not the lookAt point.
glm::vec3 view = cam->GetView();
glm::normalize(view);
glm::vec3 h = glm::cross(view, glm::vec3(0,1,0) ); //cameraUp
glm::normalize(h);
glm::vec3 v = glm::cross(h, view);
glm::normalize(v);
// convert fovy to radians
float rad = fovy * 3.14 / 180.f;
float vLength = tan(rad/2) * nearClip; //nearClippingPlaneDistance
float hLength = vLength * (LENGTH/HEIGHT);
v *= vLength;
h *= hLength;
// translate mouse coordinates so that the origin lies in the center
// of the view port
x -= LENGTH / 2.f;
y -= HEIGHT / 2.f;
// scale mouse coordinates so that half the view port width and height
// becomes 1
x /= (LENGTH/2.f);
y /= (HEIGHT/2.f);
glm::vec3 cameraPos = cam->GetPosition();
// linear combination to compute intersection of picking ray with
// view port plane
glm::vec3 pos = cameraPos + (view*nearClip) + (h*x) + (v*y);
// compute direction of picking ray by subtracting intersection point
// with camera position
glm::vec3 dir = pos - cameraPos;
//Get intersection between ray and the ground plane
pos -= (dir * (pos.y/dir.y));
At this point I'd expect pos to be the point where my picking ray hits my ground plane.
When I try it, however, I get something like this:
(The mouse cursor wasn't recorded)
It's hard to see since the ground has no texture, but the camera is tilted, like in most RTS games.
My pitiful attempt to model a remotely human looking being in Blender marks the point where the intersection happened according to my calculation.
So it seems that the transformation between view and dir somewhere messed up and my ray ended up pointing in the wrong direction.
The gap between the calculated position and the actual position increases the farther I mouse my move away from the center of the screen.
I've found out that:
HEIGHT and LENGTH aren't acurate. Since Windows cuts away a few pixels for borders it'd be more accurate to use 1006,728 as window resolution. I guess that could make for small discrepancies.
If I increase fovy from 45 to about 78 I get a fairly accurate ray. So maybe there's something wrong with what I use as fovy. I'm explicitely calling glm::perspective(45.f, 1.38f, 0.1f, 500.f) (fovy, aspect ratio, fNear, fFar respectively).
So here's where I am lost. What do I have to do in order to get an accurate ray?
PS: I know that there are functions and libraries that have this implemented, but I try to stay away from these things for learning purposes.
Here's working code that does cursor to 3D conversion using depth buffer info:
glGetIntegerv(GL_VIEWPORT, #fViewport);
glGetDoublev(GL_PROJECTION_MATRIX, #fProjection);
glGetDoublev(GL_MODELVIEW_MATRIX, #fModelview);
//fViewport already contains viewport offsets
PosX := X;
PosY := ScreenY - Y; //In OpenGL Y axis is inverted and starts from bottom
glReadPixels(PosX, PosY, 1, 1, GL_DEPTH_COMPONENT, GL_FLOAT, #vz);
gluUnProject(PosX, PosY, vz, fModelview, fProjection, fViewport, #wx, #wy, #wz);
XYZ.X := wx;
XYZ.Y := wy;
XYZ.Z := wz;
If you do test only ray/plane intersection this is the second part without DepthBuffer:
gluUnProject(PosX, PosY, 0, fModelview, fProjection, fViewport, #x1, #y1, #z1); //Near
gluUnProject(PosX, PosY, 1, fModelview, fProjection, fViewport, #x2, #y2, #z2); //Far
//No intersection
Result := False;
XYZ.X := 0;
XYZ.Y := 0;
XYZ.Z := aZ;
if z2 < z1 then
SwapFloat(z1, z2);
if (z1 <> z2) and InRange(aZ, z1, z2) then
begin
D := 1 - (aZ - z1) / (z2 - z1);
XYZ.X := Lerp(x1, x2, D);
XYZ.Y := Lerp(y1, y2, D);
Result := True;
end;
I find it rather different from what you are doing, but maybe that will make more sense.

gluLookAt eyeZ not working as excpected

I'm having some trouble with the eyeZ value of gluLookAt.
The way I'd imagine it to work is like moving a camera further away, thus shrinking the object in your field of view.
I have a simple setup with a simple shape in 3d space draw via glDrawElements with an 100x100x100 ortho where 0, 0, 0 is the center of the universe. The object is at 0, 0, 0.
I'm trying to make it so when you scroll the mouse wheel you get further away/closer to the object. Here's how glulookat is called.
float eyeX = 0;
float eyeY = 0;
float eyeZ = differenceInMouseWheel();
float centerX = 0;
float centerY = 0;
float centerZ = 0;
float upX = 0;
float upY = 1;
float upZ = 0;
gluLookAt(eyeX, eyeY, eyeZ, centerX, centerY, centerZ, upX, upY, upZ);
The only thing changing here is eyeZ.
The effect is strange, I scroll for about 10 seconds and then suddenly half of the object disappears. From there more and more of it disappears. This is probably because the camera is going out off into the 50 z distance limit, but I can't understand why the object doesn't scale like it would in 3D space.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding how the center values work?
I've also tried applying differenceInMouseWheel() to centerZ but that changed nothing, I'm going to assume the center values are just so glu can get a direction and nothing more.
Maybe the up vector should change? I don't know at this point.
You are using an orthographic projection. This means that no matter how great the distance, your objects will always appear to have the same size. Your object will disappear once it reaches the far clipping plane however, which is what you are seeing when you scroll for a long time.
You have two options: Either you use a perspective projection or you implement a zoom by modifying the orthographic projection matrix like so:
Let zoom be in (0, 1], and let viewport be a rectangle that is set to your current viewport. Let near be your near clipping plane distance and far be your far clipping plane distance.
glOrtho(zoom * viewport.width / 2, zoom * viewport.width / 2, zoom * viewport.height / 2, zoom * viewport.height / 2, near, far);
Are you using a perspective projection matrix, or an orthographic one? If you don't use a perspective matrix the object's wont appear to change in size as you move the camera around.

Transforming verticies with center point and scale factor?

My application is a vector drawing application. It works with OpenGL. I will be modifying it to instead use the Cairo 2D graphics library. The issue is with zooming. With openGL camera and scale factor sort of work like this:
float scalediv = Current_Scene().camera.ScaleFactor / 2.0f;
float cameraX = GetCameraX();
float cameraY = GetCameraY();
glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
glLoadIdentity();
float left = cameraX - ((float)controls.MainGlFrame.Dimensions.x) * scalediv;
float right = cameraX + ((float)controls.MainGlFrame.Dimensions.x) * scalediv;
float bottom = cameraY - ((float)controls.MainGlFrame.Dimensions.y) * scalediv;
float top = cameraY + ((float)controls.MainGlFrame.Dimensions.y) * scalediv;
glOrtho(left,
right,
bottom,
top,
-0.01f,0.01f);
// Set the model matrix as the current matrix
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
glLoadIdentity();
hdc = BeginPaint(controls.MainGlContext.mhWnd,&ps);
Mouse position is obtained like this:
POINT _mouse = controls.MainGlFrame.GetMousePos();
vector2f mouse = functions.ScreenToWorld(_mouse.x,_mouse.y,GetCameraX(),GetCameraY(),
Current_Scene().camera.ScaleFactor,
controls.MainGlFrame.Dimensions.x,
controls.MainGlFrame.Dimensions.y );
vector2f CGlEngineFunctions::ScreenToWorld(int x, int y, float camx, float camy, float scale, int width, int height)
{
// Move the given point to the origin, multiply by the zoom factor and
// add the model coordinates of the center point (camera position)
vector2f p;
p.x = (float)(x - width / 2.0f) * scale +
camx;
p.y = -(float)(y - height / 2.0f) * scale +
camy;
return p;
}
From there I draw the VBO's of triangles. This allows me to pan and zoom in. Given that Cairo only can draw based on coordinates, how can I make it so that a vertex is properly scaled and panned without using transformations. Basically GlOrtho sets the viewport usually but I dont think I could do this with Cairo.
Well GlOrtho is able to change the viewport matrix instead of modifying the verticies but how could I instead modify the verticies to get the same result?
Thanks
*Given vertex P, which was obtained from ScreenToWorld, how could I modify it so that it is scaled and panned accordng to the camera and scale factor? Because usually OpenGL would essentially do this
I think Cairo can do what you want ... see http://cairographics.org/matrix_transform/ . Does that solve your problem, and if not, why ?

How to run OpenGL code with out compiling?

So I have some openGL code (such code for example)
/* FUNCTION: YCamera :: CalculateWorldCoordinates
ARGUMENTS: x mouse x coordinate
y mouse y coordinate
vec where to store coordinates
RETURN: n/a
DESCRIPTION: Convert mouse coordinates into world coordinates
*/
void YCamera :: CalculateWorldCoordinates(float x, float y, YVector3 *vec) { // START GLint viewport[4]; GLdouble mvmatrix[16], projmatrix[16];
GLint real_y;
GLdouble mx, my, mz;
glGetIntegerv(GL_VIEWPORT, viewport);
glGetDoublev(GL_MODELVIEW_MATRIX, mvmatrix);
glGetDoublev(GL_PROJECTION_MATRIX, projmatrix);
real_y = viewport[3] - (GLint) y - 1; // viewport[3] is height of window in pixels
gluUnProject((GLdouble) x, (GLdouble) real_y, 1.0, mvmatrix, projmatrix, viewport, &mx, &my, &mz);
/* 'mouse' is the point where mouse projection reaches FAR_PLANE.
World coordinates is intersection of line(camera->mouse) with plane(z=0) (see LaMothe 306)
Equation of line in 3D:
(x-x0)/a = (y-y0)/b = (z-z0)/c
Intersection of line with plane:
z = 0
x-x0 = a(z-z0)/c <=> x = x0+a(0-z0)/c <=> x = x0 -a*z0/c
y = y0 - b*z0/c
*/
double lx = fPosition.x - mx;
double ly = fPosition.y - my;
double lz = fPosition.z - mz;
double sum = lx*lx + ly*ly + lz*lz;
double normal = sqrt(sum);
double z0_c = fPosition.z / (lz/normal);
vec->x = (float) (fPosition.x - (lx/normal)*z0_c);
vec->y = (float) (fPosition.y - (ly/normal)*z0_c);
vec->z = 0.0f;
}
I want to run It but with out precompiling. Is there any way to do such thing
This is possible with LWJGL (OpenGL binding) and the REPL in Scala (runs on the JVM). I imagine that other languages like Clojure/Jython could also handle this request -- either through LWJGL or Jogl. There are also OpenGL bindings for a whole host of languages that don't require (explicit) compiling or come with their own REPL and/or 'integrated IDE'.
C normally always requires a compilation, but I did find this:
http://neugierig.org/software/c-repl/ and I'm sure there are other projects similar in nature.
Happy coding.