2D text in 3D

[waynekt]

I am building a 3D plot utility that can be rotated with the keys or mouse. I am now working on putting numbers on (near) the x,y, and z axes (I'll also need to put axis labels there).

These labels will need to rotate with the coordinate axes as the plot is rotated by the user. What is the best way to do (i.e. easiest way to program) this type of text.

Note: I don't think I'll need high speed rendering, so I don't think I need the most computationally efficient solution.

Thanks,
wayne

[Gorg]

http://nehe.gamedev.net/

look there. Nehe has some great tutorials about text in opengl.

[Eric]

What you are looking for is called billboarding. You can have cylindrical billboarding (the object turns around an axis) which is useful for bitmap-trees. You can also have spherical billboarding (the object turns around a point) which would be better for what you wanna do.

Personnally, I implemented cylindrical billboarding thanks to one of the SGI Siggraph examples. I am stuck with the spherical one (and I know many other people are) but I'll have another try when I have time....

Eric

P.S. : if someone can tell me how to do this spherical billboarding I'd be happy !

[Marc]

Errr.... please could you explain more exactly, what the spherical and cylindrical billboarding is? I think I do something like spherical billboarding to make sure that a square with a particle-texture always faces the viewer, but I'm not sure whith the name of it.

[waynekt]

Gorg and Eric,
A belated thanks for the tips, I am working away at the NeHe tutorials.

wayne