Pen Planet - Drawing on a Sphere

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There was a CodePen Challenge for Spheres so we used ZIM TextureActive to draw on a three.js sphere:

https://codepen.io/zimjs/pen/dPogxNB

planet

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Drawing near the meridian at the “back” of the globe and near its poles is somewhat strange. Is this on purpose?

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Yes - it is as expected - the ZIM texture wraps around the sphere. So when the mouse crosses the vertical line that means it went to the other side of the texture and the MotionControler then moves the opposite way. We mention it and the reasons in the Explore video.

Once you get used to it, it can be a feature - for instance to draw those nice around the planet rings. For this app, it really does not matter. It would be a tricky thing to solve aside from limiting drawing to the middle area of the sphere - or do not use a sphere or cylinder to draw on ;-).

Thanks for the comment - what do you think of it all? You have been following TextureActives for a while now - have you tried?

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Hard to tell. My machine is too weak for TextureActives. For example, the Pen Planet starts at 15fps but quickly slows down to 1fps which makes it impractical for me. When I get a faster computer, I will try again.

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We had forgotten to put a little throttle code at the bottom of Pen Planet. We have done that now. Perhaps it will help. If you get a chance, please try again. It seems to be slower in Firefox too - so if you have Chrome, perhaps try that.