Mapping data onto spinning globes in 3D on HTC Vive using Max
Am working on a VR project with Graham Wakefield's excellent Worldmaking package for the HTC Vive. If you haven't tried it I recommend it.
I am looking to render some data on a world globe (like flight tracking info) and am wondering what the best approach is.
The globe is up and looks spectacular - I followed Sem Shimla's tutorial on You tube on "Photorealism in Max OpenGL - Tutorial" and used some different textures to get my effect.
In regards to getting objects orbiting/flying on my globe.... I have two possible approaches:
a) Plot the data in 2D on the image that is then rendered onto the globe - easy to do but I am concerned about glitches/flicker and having to reset the patch if I keep re-rendering... plus it is 2D on a 3D image in VR which defeats the point a bit
or
b) Plot data in 3D above the sphere - what jit.gl object makes sense here? And am I plotting relative to my sphere or in absolute space? Anyone point me in the right direction as to which objects to try?
I would have thought plotting relative to the sphere in 3D space makes sense, but I am no expert...
Check out the jit.anim objects, node/drive/path
yeah, jit.anim.path and jit.gl.path sound like the objects to check out. for text check out jit.gl.text
Additionally you may wish to have means to fluidly convert between spherical and cartesian coordinates (and vice versa).
For example, to determine the layout of your scene using the spherical coordinates, and then convert those to cartesian to actually place them.
For this, jasch updated their objects which includes 3Dpoltocar and 3Dcartopol.
http://www.jasch.ch/dl/