macOS Displaying Large Objects into NSOpenGLView

[Soulstorm]

Well, as you may recall from a previews thread, I am building a .obj file loader. The question I have concerns general OpenGL, so it doesn't require of me to show much code, or from you to know about .obj files. I succeeded in making the loader, and I also succeeded in displaying that object on screen. Materials are also used. (I hope I can implement textures into the next few days...).

I have a problem, though. I have made an application which loads and displays a model. However, as you imagine, the dimensions of each model are completely different. One model could have vertices that have coordinates like those:

x: 1000 y: 8673 z: 9344

Other models may have vertices like those:

x: 9,34 y:7,34 z: 9,44

My problem is that I can't think of any good way of resizing the view each time I load a new model to something that produces a viewable result. My display code so far is the following:

MyOpenGLView.h code:

       #import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>
#import "ObjLoaders.h"
#include <iostream>
#include "General.h"
#include <GLUT/GLUT.h>
using namespace std;



#define FILENAME "lightcycle-low.obj"
#define FILENAME2 "lightcycle-low.txt"
#define FILENAME3 "Cube.obj"
#define FILENAME4 "Cone.obj"
#define FILENAME5 "test/lightcycle-high.obj"
#define FILENAME6 "Bau2.obj"


#define UPDATE_SECONDS 1.0f/200
#define STANDARD_ROTATION_DEGREES_PREDEFINED_VALUE 0.3f
#define STEP_SIZE 0.5f


@interface MyOpenGLView : NSOpenGLView {
	
	
	float yRot;
	float xRot;
	float standardRotationDegrees;
	
	float upAndDownTranslation;
	float leftAndRightTranslation;
	float nearAndFarTrasnlation;
	NSTimer *timer;
}

-(IBAction)stopDefaultRotation:(id)sender;
- (void)rotate:(float)degrees;

- (IBAction)rotateUp:(id)sender;
- (IBAction)rotateDown:(id)sender;
- (IBAction)rotateLeft:(id)sender;
- (IBAction)rotateRight:(id)sender;
- (IBAction)moveCameraLeft:(id)sender;
- (IBAction)moveCameraRight:(id)sender;
- (IBAction)moveCameraUp:(id)sender;
- (IBAction)moveCameraDown:(id)sender;
- (IBAction)moveCameraForward:(id)sender;
- (IBAction)moveCameraBackwards:(id)sender;

- (IBAction)loadOBJFile:(id)sender;
@end

MyOpenGLView.mm code:

#import "MyOpenGLView.h"


OBJModel model;

@implementation MyOpenGLView

- (void) heartbeat
{
	[self rotate:standardRotationDegrees];
	if(![[NSApplication sharedApplication] isHidden])
		[self setNeedsDisplay:YES];
	//[self rotateLeft:self];
}

- (void)prepareOpenGL
{
	standardRotationDegrees = 0.3f;
	timer = [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:(UPDATE_SECONDS) target:self selector:@selector(heartbeat) userInfo:nil repeats:YES];
	[timer retain];
	
	//[[NSRunLoop currentRunLoop] addTimer: timer forMode: NSDefaultRunLoopMode];
	//[[NSRunLoop currentRunLoop] addTimer: timer forMode: NSEventTrackingRunLoopMode];
	
	NSLog(@"preparing openGL...");
	glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f );
	
	//glEnable(GL_COLOR_MATERIAL);
	
	glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST);
	glShadeModel(GL_SMOOTH);
	
	yRot = 0.0f;
	xRot = 0.0;;
	upAndDownTranslation = 0.0f;
	leftAndRightTranslation = 0.0f;
	nearAndFarTrasnlation = 0.0f;
	
	
	model.loadOBJFile(FILENAME4);
	//GLfloat lightpos[4] = {0.0f, 0.2f, -1.0, 1.0f};
	GLfloat lightpos[4] = {2.0f, 2.0f, 2.0, 1.0f};
	glLightfv(GL_LIGHT0, GL_POSITION, lightpos);
	glEnable(GL_LIGHTING);
	glEnable(GL_LIGHT0);
	
}

- (void)reshape
{
	[[self openGLContext]makeCurrentContext];
	NSRect bounds = [self bounds];
	//NSLog(@"reshaping: %f, %f", NSWidth(bounds), NSHeight(bounds));
	glViewport(0, 0, NSWidth(bounds), NSHeight(bounds));
	glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
	glLoadIdentity();
	gluPerspective(45, NSWidth(bounds)/NSHeight(bounds), 0.1f, 1000.0f);
	//	glOrtho(-20, 20, -20, 20, -100, 100);
	glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
	glLoadIdentity();
	[NSOpenGLContext clearCurrentContext];
	
}


- (void)drawRect:(NSRect)rect {
	glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);
	
	glLoadIdentity();
	
	
	//glTranslatef(0.0f, 0.0f, -20.0f);
	
	gluLookAt(0, 0, nearAndFarTrasnlation, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0);
	glTranslatef(leftAndRightTranslation, 0, 0);
	glRotatef(xRot, 1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f);
	glRotatef(yRot, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f);
	
	//draw the model
	for (int i=0; i<model.numTriangles(); i++) {
		model.drawFaceAtIndex(i);
	}
	

	[[self openGLContext]flushBuffer];
}

#pragma mark -
#pragma mark Moving The Camera
- (void)rotate:(float)degrees
{
	yRot = yRot - degrees;
}
- (IBAction)rotateUp:(id)sender
{
	xRot-= 5.0f;
	if(xRot < 0.1f)
		xRot = 359.9;
	[self setNeedsDisplay:YES];
}
- (IBAction)rotateDown:(id)sender
{
	xRot += 5.0f;
	if(xRot > 359.9f)
		xRot = 0.0f;
	[self setNeedsDisplay:YES];
}
- (IBAction)rotateLeft:(id)sender
{
	yRot -= 5.0f;
	if(yRot < 0.1f)
		yRot = 359.9;
	[self setNeedsDisplay:YES];
}
- (IBAction)rotateRight:(id)sender
{
	yRot += 5.0f;
	if(yRot > 359.9f)
		yRot = 0.0f;
	[self setNeedsDisplay:YES];
}

-(IBAction)stopDefaultRotation:(id)sender
{
	if(standardRotationDegrees > 0.0f)
		standardRotationDegrees = 0.0f;
	else
		standardRotationDegrees = STANDARD_ROTATION_DEGREES_PREDEFINED_VALUE;
}


- (IBAction)moveCameraLeft:(id)sender
{
	leftAndRightTranslation -= STEP_SIZE;
	[self setNeedsDisplay:YES];
}
- (IBAction)moveCameraRight:(id)sender
{
	leftAndRightTranslation += STEP_SIZE;
	[self setNeedsDisplay:YES];
}
- (IBAction)moveCameraUp:(id)sender
{

}
- (IBAction)moveCameraDown:(id)sender
{
	
}
- (IBAction)moveCameraForward:(id)sender
{
	nearAndFarTrasnlation += STEP_SIZE;
	[self setNeedsDisplay:YES];
}
- (IBAction)moveCameraBackwards:(id)sender
{
	if(nearAndFarTrasnlation < 0)
		nearAndFarTrasnlation = 0;
	nearAndFarTrasnlation -= STEP_SIZE;
	[self setNeedsDisplay:YES];
}



- (IBAction)loadOBJFile:(id)sender
{
	NSOpenPanel *openPanel = [NSOpenPanel openPanel];
	[openPanel setCanChooseDirectories:NO];
	[openPanel setCanChooseFiles:YES];
	[openPanel setAllowsMultipleSelection:NO];
	[openPanel setAllowedFileTypes:[NSArray arrayWithObject:@".obj"]];
	if ([openPanel runModalForDirectory:NSHomeDirectory() file:nil] == NSOKButton) {
		[[NSFileManager defaultManager]changeCurrentDirectoryPath:[[openPanel filename]stringByDeletingLastPathComponent]];
		model.reset();
		model.loadOBJFile([[[openPanel filename]stringByStandardizingPath]cStringUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]);
	}
}

- (void) dealloc
{
	if(timer != nil)
		[timer release];
	[super dealloc];
}

@end

As you can see, I have used gluPerspective() with gluLookAt(). Although some models are displayed correctly, I have a model that has vertices like x:300.0 y:20.0 z:1000.0. That model is not displayed at all. Therefore, I need a way to resize the view to something that can hold objects of any size each time I load a new model.

Can you recommend any way of coping with that problem?

 

[lazydog]

Rather than scale the view, I would be tempted to scale the model when you draw it, ie just push a glScale on the model view matrix before drawing it. You could work out the scaling factor from the vertex bounds when you load the model.

b e n