Cartesian coordinate conversion Unity3d

In 3D, we have a total of 48 different combinations of space coordinates to choose from:-

2 handed (or single axis flipped) systems x 3 axis x 4 (90 degree possible rotations around each (generally)) x 2 (possible 2 flipped axis variations on the same hand same rotation) = 48 possibilities.

There are 6 ways to notate xyz in a file but this would essentially replicate one of the 48 possibilities simply converting it from one possibility to another.

The functions below will only cover converting the 6 basic types (2 handed (or single axis flipped) systems x 3 axis) to Y-Up Left Hand system used by unity, so discounting the one that unity uses equals five conversions & one non conversion, also presuming all notation is written x,y,z irrespective of direction.
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By |July 6th, 2011|Unity 3D|Comments Off on Cartesian coordinate conversion Unity3d

Marquee / Rectangle GameObject Selection

I had queried this problem many times in the past but never needed to try and solve it until this week. The problem with selecting object/s via given screen rect coordinates within Unity is that if your camera’s view is not orthographic…which in most cases it isn’t, your rectangle, projected collision detection or raycast will need to take the form of a trapezoid shape i.e. matching the camera frustrum, fanning out from the screen rectangle.

You could create a mesh of this shape and try some sort of collision detection, but perhaps if you are using many mesh colliders this may not be an easy task and carry too much overhead.

Here are two pretty useful functions that will solve this task, both functions take two screen coordinates in the form of Vector3’s (as in Input.mousePosition), and an array of GameObjects to test against however they return different results:-

The first function returns an array of GameObjects where the center of the GO’s renderer bounds is within the camera projected rectangle/trapezoid – This method is probably only useful on small non-enclosed meshes however it does allow the user not to have to completely surround objects with the marquee.

The second function returns an array of GameObjects where the meshes local OBB points are within the camera projected rectangle – This method provides much more accuracy with selection however an objects bounds must be completely encompassed by the given screen rect.
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By |July 5th, 2011|Unity 3D|Comments Off on Marquee / Rectangle GameObject Selection