[Bf-committers] NDOF: patch for spin/roll rotations

[Ettore Pasquini]

On 8/9/07 9:22 PM, "sfogoros" <sfogoros at att.net> wrote:

> I understand there are problems with the current implementation. In fly
> mode, the rotations Rx and Ry are rotated by the current Rz angle. This
> creates a problem when the view is TOP (translate is effected too). I
> plan to correct this soon where the behavior is a first person view of
> the scene in all orientations.

I was mainly talking about turntable mode, but now that you make me think
about it, I think the RY and RZ rotations are inverted in fly mode. I didn't
notice the problem you described.

> 
> In turntable mode, I never could figure out how the implementation
> 'should' behave and couldn't fix it (which is why I wrote fly mode).
> Anything you can do to make this mode work better will be great.

In fact my fix addresses the turntable mode rotations, which are clearly not
consistent. Anybody tried the patch yet?

> I looked at some other 3D software and found predominantly turntable
> type rotations (centered on the screen center) and translations. I
> didn't find a fly or first person mode in Maya. Terms for movement and
> rotation are commonly misused too.

Did you see Google SketchUp? (BTW it's windows/mac only, sorry.) There's no
turntable mode (just full 6DOF) and there is a camera fly mode. I think the
implementation there is pretty good.

> The important issue at hand is the term Zoom. Zoom is a camera lens
> setting. Any function of moving the camera or viewpoint position
> relative to the scene should be described in film or math terms (like
> dolly or translate). It's confusing because the desire to 'get closer'
> to the subject feels like a zoom movement. Zoom should effect the field
> of view. Getting closer to the subject with a 'zoom' effect requires
> translating along the current view rotation and there is typically no
> film term for that. That's probably why we [incorrectly] call it zoom.

Sorry about the confusion of terms. I think it's kind of inevitable when
different disciplines cross over (blends into ;) each other. I hope what I
wrote was clear enough. However, I think I was consistent: I always referred
to the terminology used in the 3Dconnexion Control Panel.

Ettore


> 
> Ettore Pasquini wrote:
>> I don't know if anybody noticed but the rotations currently performed with
>> our NDOF devices are wrong in Blender.  To realize this, let's use a
>> CAD-style Zoom axis (i.e. parallel to the device base (blue setting in the
>> pref pane):
>> http://cubelogic.org/blender/zoom-axis-setting.png
>> 
>> Go to Top View in turntable mode and slightly tilt the view so the world's
>> Up blue axis points down. If you do a Spin motion on the device everything
>> _seems_ ok. Now tilt back so the Up axis points up. Oops, the rotation is
>> now inverted. Now, if you spin and tilt the view at the same time, bringing
>> the Up blue axis from pointing up to pointing down, you'll notice a "bump"
>> when it crosses over. Not good.
>> 
>> The full issue is that if you are looking down (Top view) you are using the
>> Spin axis on the device to rotate around the Up axis, although the axis
>> parallel to the Up-axis is the Roll axis on the device. It is not
>> consistent.  If the seen Up axis is parallel to the zoom axis, you should
>> use a Roll motion only. When you start to tilt, moving from Top to Side
>> view, Spinning will increasingly become more relevant while the Roll
>> component should decrease. When a full Side view is reached, rotations
>> around the world's Up axis are achieved with a Spin motion only.
>> 
>> In other words the control of the spinning around the world's Up axis should
>> move from the device's Spin axis to the device's Roll axis depending on the
>> orientation of the world's Up axis relative to the screen.
>> 
>> I hope my explanations were clear enough. I suppose it's much easier to just
>> apply the patch and see for yourself:
>> http://cubelogic.org/blender/spin-roll-control.patch
>> 
>> The patch above makes all the rotations consistent with your zoom settings.
>> 
>> Ettore