Text that is not affected by rotations

I am writing a piece of code that draws 3D objects onto the canvas using P3D render.
I have coded it such that one can rotate the camera and pan and zoom, etc.

I want to write some info text onto the screen, but when I move the camera, the text moves as though it were a real object getting displayed; I want the text to move with the camera, so as to stay in the same place (relative to the screen, not the objects).

Is there a function or way to stop the text being an object?
This is not a bug, just a limit if mu knowledge :)
Thanks!

1 Like

if you have installed the library
PeasyCam 302 Jonathan Feinberg
can use example
HeadUpDisplay
like:

import peasy.PeasyCam;

PeasyCam cam;

public void setup() {
  size(800, 600, P3D);
  cam = new PeasyCam(this, 400);
}

public void draw() {
  myView();
  myHUD();
}

void myView() {
  rotateX(-.5f);
  rotateY(-.5f);
  lights();
  scale(10);
  strokeWeight(1 / 10f);
  background(0);
  fill(96, 255, 0);
  box(30);
  pushMatrix();
  translate(0, 0, 17.5);
  fill(0, 96, 255);
  box(5);
  popMatrix();
}

void myHUD() {
  cam.beginHUD();
  fill(0, 128);
  rect(0, 0, 70, 30);
  fill(255);
  text(nfc(frameRate, 2)+" FPS", 10, 18);
  cam.endHUD();
}

1 Like

Hello,

This is an example that rotates the text back with the movement of the camera.
It will require more work if adding additional rotations along the other axis.

float rotation = 0;
float theta = 0;

void setup() 
  {
  size(500, 500, P3D);
  background(255);
  textSize(48);
  hint(ENABLE_DEPTH_SORT); //Comment this to see what it does!
  }

void draw() 
  {
  background(0);
  lights();
  
  pushMatrix();
  float radius = 250;
  float ypos = 0;
  float xpos = cos(theta)*radius;
  float zpos = sin(theta)*radius; 
  camera(xpos, ypos, zpos, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0);

  translate(0, -50, 0);
  fill(128);
  noStroke();
  float s = 1.5;
  box(s*90, s*40, s*10);
  
  fill(255);
  textAlign(CENTER);
  textSize(48);
  text("Monolith", 0, 100, 0);
  
  pushMatrix();
  rotateY(TAU/4);
  pushMatrix();
  rotateY(-theta);
  textSize(48);
  text("Monolith", 0, 100, 0);
  popMatrix();
  popMatrix();
  
  theta += TAU/500;
  popMatrix();
  }

I used hint(ENABLE_DEPTH_SORT) so the text would overlap nicely.

I rotated text back in this example:

:slight_smile:

1 Like

Specifically Peasycam has a HUD

it’s

cam.beginHUD();

Then your text buttons etc

Then

cam.endHUD();

http://mrfeinberg.com/peasycam/

Another method is:

void draw() {
  pushMatrix();
  // 3d camera here
  // 3d draw here
  popMatrix();
  text("foo", x, y);
}

Another approach is to render your text onto a PGraphics pg, then composite it with image(pg, 0, 0) at the end of draw. Note that it can be a 2D even if the main sketch is P3D – this can give you better baseline text quality.