Cylinder Orientation between two points on a sphere, Scenekit, Quaternions IOS

Question

I\'ve been trying to draw a cylinder between two points on the outer edge of a sphere using SceneKit. I have already produced a line between these two points using primitive

Answer 1

Just for reference a more elegant SCNCyclinder implementation to connect a start and end position with a given radius:

func makeCylinder(from: SCNVector3, to: SCNVector3, radius: CGFloat) -> SCNNode
{
    let lookAt = to - from
    let height = lookAt.length()

    let y = lookAt.normalized()
    let up = lookAt.cross(vector: to).normalized()
    let x = y.cross(vector: up).normalized()
    let z = x.cross(vector: y).normalized()
    let transform = SCNMatrix4(x: x, y: y, z: z, w: from)

    let geometry = SCNCylinder(radius: radius, 
                               height: CGFloat(height))
    let childNode = SCNNode(geometry: geometry)
    childNode.transform = SCNMatrix4MakeTranslation(0.0, height / 2.0, 0.0) * 
      transform

    return childNode
}

Needs the following extension:

extension SCNVector3 {
    /**
     * Calculates the cross product between two SCNVector3.
     */
    func cross(vector: SCNVector3) -> SCNVector3 {
        return SCNVector3Make(y * vector.z - z * vector.y, z * vector.x - x * vector.z, x * vector.y - y * vector.x)
    }

    func length() -> Float {
        return sqrtf(x*x + y*y + z*z)
    }

    /**
     * Normalizes the vector described by the SCNVector3 to length 1.0 and returns
     * the result as a new SCNVector3.
     */
    func normalized() -> SCNVector3 {
        return self / length()
    }
}

extension SCNMatrix4 {
    public init(x: SCNVector3, y: SCNVector3, z: SCNVector3, w: SCNVector3) {
        self.init(
            m11: x.x,
            m12: x.y,
            m13: x.z,
            m14: 0.0,

            m21: y.x,
            m22: y.y,
            m23: y.z,
            m24: 0.0,

            m31: z.x,
            m32: z.y,
            m33: z.z,
            m34: 0.0,

            m41: w.x,
            m42: w.y,
            m43: w.z,
            m44: 1.0)
    }
}

/**
 * Divides the x, y and z fields of a SCNVector3 by the same scalar value and
 * returns the result as a new SCNVector3.
 */
func / (vector: SCNVector3, scalar: Float) -> SCNVector3 {
    return SCNVector3Make(vector.x / scalar, vector.y / scalar, vector.z / scalar)
}

func * (left: SCNMatrix4, right: SCNMatrix4) -> SCNMatrix4 {
    return SCNMatrix4Mult(left, right)
}