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Interface: RNFCamera

Camera represents the eye through which the scene is viewed.

A Camera has a position and orientation and controls the projection and exposure parameters.

Coordinate system​

The camera coordinate system defines the view space. The camera points towards its -z axis and is oriented such that its top side is in the direction of +y, and its right side in the direction of +x.

Since the near and far planes are defined by the distance from the camera, their respective coordinates are -distance_near and -distance_far.

Clipping planes​

The camera defines six clipping planes which together create a clipping volume. The geometry outside this volume is clipped.

The clipping volume can either be a box or a frustum depending on which projection is used, respectively Projection.ORTHO or Projection.PERSPECTIVE. The six planes are specified either directly or indirectly using setProjection or setLensProjection.

The six planes are:

  • left
  • right
  • bottom
  • top
  • near
  • far

To increase the depth-buffer precision, the far clipping plane is always assumed to be at infinity for rendering. That is, it is not used to clip geometry during rendering. However, it is used during the culling phase (objects entirely behind the far plane are culled).

Choosing the near plane distance​

The near plane distance greatly affects the depth-buffer resolution.

Example: Precision at 1m, 10m, 100m and 1Km for various near distances assuming a 32-bit float depth-buffer

near (m)1 m10 m100 m1 Km
0.0017.2e-50.00430.462448.58
0.016.9e-60.00010.04304.62
0.13.6e-77.0e-50.00720.43
1.003.8e-60.00070.07

As can be seen in the table above, the depth-buffer precision drops rapidly with the distance to the camera.

Make sure to pick the highest near plane distance possible.

Exposure​

The Camera is also used to set the scene's exposure, just like with a real camera. The lights intensity and the Camera exposure interact to produce the final scene's brightness.

See​

View

Extends​

  • PointerHolder

Properties​

isValid​

readonly isValid: boolean

Get if the refernce to the native pointer is still valid and strong.

If this is false, this object has been manually released with release() and all other methods on this object will throw an Error.

Inherited from​

PointerHolder.isValid

Defined in​

src/types/PointerHolder.ts:37

Methods​

lookAt()​

lookAt(eye, center, up): void

Parameters​

• eye: Float3

The position of the camera in space

• center: Float3

The target position to look at

• up: Float3

The up vector of the camera (Usually (0, 1, 0))

Returns​

void

Defined in​

src/types/Camera.ts:77

lookAtCameraManipulator()​

lookAtCameraManipulator(cameraManipulator): void

Parameters​

• cameraManipulator: CameraManipulator

Returns​

void

Defined in​

src/types/Camera.ts:70

release()​

release(): void

Manually release this reference to the native pointer. This will ensure that JS will no longer hold a strong reference, and memory can be safely cleaned up.

If the native pointer is still referenced elsewhere in native code, the underlying memory will not be deleted unless the other references are also released.

If this is not called, the memory will only be cleaned once the JS gabage collector decides to delete this object, which might be at any point in the future.

Calling release() is not required as the GC will destroy this object eventually anyways, but it is recommended to optimize memory usage.

After manually releasing a pointer, all future methods on this object will throw an Error.

Returns​

void

Inherited from​

PointerHolder.release

Defined in​

src/types/PointerHolder.ts:30

setLensProjection()​

setLensProjection(focalLengthInMillimeters, aspect, near, far): void

Utility to set the projection matrix from the focal length.

Parameters​

• focalLengthInMillimeters: number

lens's focal length in millimeters.focalLength > 0.

• aspect: number

aspect ratio (You can use view.aspectRatio)

• near: number

distance in world units from the camera to the near plane. near > 0.

• far: number

distance in world units from the camera to the far plane. far > near.

Returns​

void

Defined in​

src/types/Camera.ts:86

setProjection()​

setProjection(fov, aspect, near, far): void

Utility to set the projection matrix from the field-of-view.

Parameters​

• fov: number

• aspect: number

aspect ratio width/height aspect > 0.

• near: number

distance in world units from the camera to the near plane. \p near > 0.

• far: number

distance in world units from the camera to the far plane. \p far > \p near.

Returns​

void

See​

Fov.

Defined in​

src/types/Camera.ts:100