Rotate camera in Three.js with mouse

Question

I have quite a few objects in my scene so rotating all of them could be a pain. So what is the most easy way to move camera around origin on mouse click and drag? This way a

Answer 1

This might serve as a good starting point for moving/rotating/zooming a camera with mouse/trackpad (in typescript):

class CameraControl {
    zoomMode: boolean = false
    press: boolean = false
    sensitivity: number = 0.02

    constructor(renderer: Three.Renderer, public camera: Three.PerspectiveCamera, updateCallback:() => void){
        renderer.domElement.addEventListener('mousemove', event => {
            if(!this.press){ return }

            if(event.button == 0){
                camera.position.y -= event.movementY * this.sensitivity
                camera.position.x -= event.movementX * this.sensitivity        
            } else if(event.button == 2){
                camera.quaternion.y -= event.movementX * this.sensitivity/10
                camera.quaternion.x -= event.movementY * this.sensitivity/10
            }

            updateCallback()
        })    

        renderer.domElement.addEventListener('mousedown', () => { this.press = true })
        renderer.domElement.addEventListener('mouseup', () => { this.press = false })
        renderer.domElement.addEventListener('mouseleave', () => { this.press = false })

        document.addEventListener('keydown', event => {
            if(event.key == 'Shift'){
                this.zoomMode = true
            }
        })

        document.addEventListener('keyup', event => {
            if(event.key == 'Shift'){
                this.zoomMode = false
            }
        })

        renderer.domElement.addEventListener('mousewheel', event => {
            if(this.zoomMode){ 
                camera.fov += event.wheelDelta * this.sensitivity
                camera.updateProjectionMatrix()
            } else {
                camera.position.z += event.wheelDelta * this.sensitivity
            }

            updateCallback()
        })
    }
}

drop it in like:

this.cameraControl = new CameraControl(renderer, camera, () => {
    // you might want to rerender on camera update if you are not rerendering all the time
    window.requestAnimationFrame(() => renderer.render(scene, camera))
})

Controls:

• move while [holding mouse left / single finger on trackpad] to move camera in x/y plane
• move [mouse wheel / two fingers on trackpad] to move up/down in z-direction
• hold shift + [mouse wheel / two fingers on trackpad] to zoom in/out via increasing/decreasing field-of-view
• move while holding [mouse right / two fingers on trackpad] to rotate the camera (quaternion)

Additionally:

If you want to kinda zoom by changing the 'distance' (along yz) instead of changing field-of-view you can bump up/down camera's position y and z while keeping the ratio of position's y and z unchanged like:

// in mousewheel event listener in zoom mode
const ratio = camera.position.y / camera.position.z
camera.position.y += (event.wheelDelta * this.sensitivity * ratio)
camera.position.z += (event.wheelDelta * this.sensitivity)

Answer 2

OrbitControls and TrackballControls seems to be good for this purpose.

controls = new THREE.TrackballControls( camera );
controls.rotateSpeed = 1.0;
controls.zoomSpeed = 1.2;
controls.panSpeed = 0.8;
controls.noZoom = false;
controls.noPan = false;
controls.staticMoving = true;
controls.dynamicDampingFactor = 0.3;

update in render

controls.update();

Answer 3

Here's a project with a rotating camera. Looking through the source it seems to just move the camera position in a circle.

function onDocumentMouseMove( event ) {

    event.preventDefault();

    if ( isMouseDown ) {

        theta = - ( ( event.clientX - onMouseDownPosition.x ) * 0.5 )
                + onMouseDownTheta;
        phi = ( ( event.clientY - onMouseDownPosition.y ) * 0.5 )
              + onMouseDownPhi;

        phi = Math.min( 180, Math.max( 0, phi ) );

        camera.position.x = radious * Math.sin( theta * Math.PI / 360 )
                            * Math.cos( phi * Math.PI / 360 );
        camera.position.y = radious * Math.sin( phi * Math.PI / 360 );
        camera.position.z = radious * Math.cos( theta * Math.PI / 360 )
                            * Math.cos( phi * Math.PI / 360 );
        camera.updateMatrix();

    }

    mouse3D = projector.unprojectVector(
        new THREE.Vector3(
            ( event.clientX / renderer.domElement.width ) * 2 - 1,
            - ( event.clientY / renderer.domElement.height ) * 2 + 1,
            0.5
        ),
        camera
    );
    ray.direction = mouse3D.subSelf( camera.position ).normalize();

    interact();
    render();

}

Here's another demo and in this one I think it just creates a new THREE.TrackballControls object with the camera as a parameter, which is probably the better way to go.

controls = new THREE.TrackballControls( camera );
controls.target.set( 0, 0, 0 )

Answer 4

take a look at the following examples

http://threejs.org/examples/#misc_controls_orbit

http://threejs.org/examples/#misc_controls_trackball

there are other examples for different mouse controls, but both of these allow the camera to rotate around a point and zoom in and out with the mouse wheel, the main difference is OrbitControls enforces the camera up direction, and TrackballControls allows the camera to rotate upside-down.

All you have to do is include the controls in your html document

<script src="js/OrbitControls.js"></script>

and include this line in your source

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

Answer 5

Take a look at THREE.PointerLockControls