Position child mesh based on local vectors in Three.js

Question

I need help positioning mesh to specific points that are given according to local coordinates. I created pink cylinders with height 0.1 to demonstrate my local points of cubes that I want to make touch each other.

Also I want cube2 to be a child of cube1, but that is not a deal breaker for a moment.

Expected result: Cubes are touching with their specific corners and in proper rotation - pink cylinders should be pixel perfect covering each other.

I tried to solve it with:

cube2.position.copy(cube_position.clone().add(cube2_position))
cube2.rotation.setFromVector3(cube_rotation.clone().add(cube2_rotation))

But that's not working like expected. Should I use some kind of Matrix transform?

const scene = new THREE.Scene();
const camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(45, window.innerWidth / window.innerHeight, 1, 1000);
camera.position.set(25, 25, 12);
// setup cubes

var geometry = new THREE.CubeGeometry(6, 6, 6);
var material = new THREE.MeshLambertMaterial({
  color: 0x00fff0
});
var cube = new THREE.Mesh(geometry, material);
scene.add(cube);

cube.position.set(0.3, 1, -2);
cube.rotation.set(Math.PI / 3, Math.PI / 2, 1)

var geometry2 = new THREE.CubeGeometry(4, 4, 4);
var material2 = new THREE.MeshLambertMaterial({
  color: 0x0fff00
});
var cube2 = new THREE.Mesh(geometry2, material2);
cube.add(cube2);

cube_position = new THREE.Vector3(3, 3, 3)
cube_rotation = new THREE.Vector3(Math.PI / 3, Math.PI / 4, 0)
cube2_position = new THREE.Vector3(2, -2, 2)
cube2_rotation = new THREE.Vector3(Math.PI / 2, Math.PI / 2, 0)

// visualize points
vmat = new THREE.MeshLambertMaterial({
  color: 0xFF00FF,
  opacity: 0.5,
  transparent: true
});
v1 = new THREE.Mesh(new THREE.CylinderGeometry(1, 1, 0.1, 10), vmat);
cube.add(v1)
v1.position.copy(cube_position)
v1.rotation.setFromVector3(cube_rotation)

v2 = new THREE.Mesh(new THREE.CylinderGeometry(1, 1, 0.1, 10), vmat);
cube2.add(v2)
v2.position.copy(cube2_position)
v2.rotation.setFromVector3(cube2_rotation)

// BUG: connect cube with cube2 on specified points

cube2.position.copy(cube_position.clone().add(cube2_position))
cube2.rotation.setFromVector3(cube_rotation.clone().add(cube2_rotation))

// setup rest
var pointLight = new THREE.PointLight(0xFFFFFF);
pointLight.position.x = 10;
pointLight.position.y = 50;
pointLight.position.z = 130;
scene.add(pointLight)

const renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer({
  antialias: true
});
renderer.setSize(window.innerWidth, window.innerHeight);
renderer.setClearColor(0x20252f);
renderer.setPixelRatio(window.devicePixelRatio);
document.body.appendChild(renderer.domElement);

const controls = new THREE.OrbitControls(camera, renderer.domElement);

animate();

function animate() {
  requestAnimationFrame(animate);
  render();
}

function render() {
  renderer.render(scene, camera);
}

Position child mesh based on local vectors in Three.js

1 Answers