The title of this question might a bit ambiguous, but I don't know how to phrase it in a line.

Basically I've got this situation: there is a perspective camera in the scene and a mesh. The mesh is NOT centered at the origin of the axis.

The camera points directly to the center of this object, and it's position (I mean literally the "position" property of the Three.js camera object) is the position with respect to the center of the object, not the origin; so it works in another coordinate system.

My question is: how can I get the position of the camera not with respect of the object center but with respect of the origin of the "global" coordinate system?

To clarify, the situation is this. In this image you can see a hand mesh that has a position far away from the origin of the coordinate system. The camera points directly to the center of the hand (so the origin from the point of view of the camera is the center of the hand), and if I print it's position it gives me these values: x: -53.46980763626004; y: -2.7201492246619283; z: -9.814480359970839 while actually I want the position with respect to the origin of the coordinate stystem (so in this case the values would be different; for example, the y value would be positive).

UPDATE: I tried @leota's suggestion, so I used the localToWorld method in this way:

var camera = scene.getCamera();
var viewPos = camera.position;
var newView = new THREE.Vector3();
newView.copy(viewPos);
camera.localToWorld(newView);

I did an experiment with this mesh. As you can see this mesh is also not centered on the origin (you can see the axes on the bottom-left corner). If I print the normal value of the camera's position (so, with respect to the center of the mesh) it gives me these results: x: 0; y: 0; z: 15

If now I print the resulting values after the code above, the result is: x: 0; y: 0; z: 30

which is wrong, because as you can see the camera position in the image has x and y values clearly different than 0 (while z = 30 could be true, as far as I can see).

If for example I rotate the camera so that it's very close to the origin, like this (in the image the camera is just behind the origin, so its position in world coordinates should have negative values for x, y, z), the coordinates with respect of the center of the object are:

x: -4.674180744175711; y: -4.8370441591630255; z: -4.877951155147168

while after the code above they bee:

x: 3.6176076166961373; y: -4.98753160894295; z: -4.365141278155379

The y and z values might even be accurate at a glance, but the positive value of x tells me that it's totally wrong, and I don't know why.

I'm going to continue looking for a solution, but this might be a step in the right direction. Still, any more suggestions are appreciated!

UPDATE 2:

Found the solution. What @leota said is correct, that is indeed how you would get absolute coordinates for the camera. In my case though, I finally found a single line of code hidden in the project's code that was scaling everything according to some rule (project related). So the solution for me was to take the camera position as it is and then scale it back according to that rule.

Since @leota's answer was indeed the solution to the original question, I'm accepting it as the correct anwser

The title of this question might a bit ambiguous, but I don't know how to phrase it in a line.

Basically I've got this situation: there is a perspective camera in the scene and a mesh. The mesh is NOT centered at the origin of the axis.

The camera points directly to the center of this object, and it's position (I mean literally the "position" property of the Three.js camera object) is the position with respect to the center of the object, not the origin; so it works in another coordinate system.

My question is: how can I get the position of the camera not with respect of the object center but with respect of the origin of the "global" coordinate system?

To clarify, the situation is this. In this image you can see a hand mesh that has a position far away from the origin of the coordinate system. The camera points directly to the center of the hand (so the origin from the point of view of the camera is the center of the hand), and if I print it's position it gives me these values: x: -53.46980763626004; y: -2.7201492246619283; z: -9.814480359970839 while actually I want the position with respect to the origin of the coordinate stystem (so in this case the values would be different; for example, the y value would be positive).

UPDATE: I tried @leota's suggestion, so I used the localToWorld method in this way:

var camera = scene.getCamera();
var viewPos = camera.position;
var newView = new THREE.Vector3();
newView.copy(viewPos);
camera.localToWorld(newView);

I did an experiment with this mesh. As you can see this mesh is also not centered on the origin (you can see the axes on the bottom-left corner). If I print the normal value of the camera's position (so, with respect to the center of the mesh) it gives me these results: x: 0; y: 0; z: 15

If now I print the resulting values after the code above, the result is: x: 0; y: 0; z: 30

which is wrong, because as you can see the camera position in the image has x and y values clearly different than 0 (while z = 30 could be true, as far as I can see).

If for example I rotate the camera so that it's very close to the origin, like this (in the image the camera is just behind the origin, so its position in world coordinates should have negative values for x, y, z), the coordinates with respect of the center of the object are:

x: -4.674180744175711; y: -4.8370441591630255; z: -4.877951155147168

while after the code above they bee:

x: 3.6176076166961373; y: -4.98753160894295; z: -4.365141278155379

The y and z values might even be accurate at a glance, but the positive value of x tells me that it's totally wrong, and I don't know why.

I'm going to continue looking for a solution, but this might be a step in the right direction. Still, any more suggestions are appreciated!

UPDATE 2:

Found the solution. What @leota said is correct, that is indeed how you would get absolute coordinates for the camera. In my case though, I finally found a single line of code hidden in the project's code that was scaling everything according to some rule (project related). So the solution for me was to take the camera position as it is and then scale it back according to that rule.

Since @leota's answer was indeed the solution to the original question, I'm accepting it as the correct anwser

• javascript
• 3d
• three.js
• coordinate-systems

• Do you attach the camera to the object – Harun ERGUL Commented Apr 25, 2016 at 13:40
• can you add a little bit codes about your case? – Harun ERGUL Commented Apr 25, 2016 at 13:42
• The thing is, I'm working on a big project with lots of stuff underneath and little to none ments in the code, so it's hard for me to look for code that might help me (or you) understand what's going on behind the scene (I tried). I wouldn't know what code to post here... – Beriol Commented Apr 25, 2016 at 15:10

2 Answers 2

Not sure I got your question :) if I did then you need to switch between World and Local coordinate systems. The THREE.PerspectiveCamera inherits from THREE.Object3D so you can use the following methods to set your coordinate system:

.localToWorld ( vector )

vector - A local vector. Updates the vector from local space to world space.

.worldToLocal ( vector )

vector - A world vector. Updates the vector from world space to local space.

From Three.js Documentation

Update:

First update your camera Matrix:

camera.updateMatrixWorld();

Then:

var vector = camera.position.clone();

vector.applyMatrix( camera.matrixWorld );

The vector should hold the position in world coordinate

I had same question trying to answer I was confused for a while my guess but not sure is

var plot = camera.position.x - mesh.position.x;
var plotb = camera.position.y - mesh.position.y;
var plotc = camera.position.z - mesh.position.z;
mesh.position.x = (camera.position.x + plot) - mesh.position.x;
mesh.position.y = (camera.position.y + plotb) - mesh.position.y;
mesh.position.z = (camera.position.z + plotc) - mesh.position.z;

or

var plot = (camera.position.x *  mesh.position.x) / 1000;
var plotb = (camera.position.y *  mesh.position.y) / 1000;
var plotc = (camera.position.z *  mesh.position.z) / 1000;
mesh.position.x = mesh.position.x + plot;
mesh.position.y = mesh.position.y + plotb;
mesh.position.z = mesh.position.z + plotc;