getting mouse co-ord or selecting an area on the screen

Hi,

I am developing one application using MFC and OpenGL.

I am displaying some 3D surface (This surface is determined through my simulation program)

Now I want to measure the length of that surface …(the interface should be similar to that of any CAD package). So what I want to do is I will click the mouse at one particular location and then click on the other…then I should get to know the length between those two points…

Also the other option which I want is the select a rectangular area using mouse click and then find …things like surface area …etc…

So my question is how should I go about getting these clicked points co-ordinates…

Thanks
aus

HI,
I have written following code in
OnLbuttondown event

GLdouble model[16];
double x;
double y;
double z;
GLdouble proj[16];
GLint view[4];
glGetDoublev(GL_MODELVIEW_MATRIX, model);
glGetDoublev(GL_PROJECTION_MATRIX, proj);
glGetIntegerv(GL_VIEWPORT, view);
gluUnProject((GLdouble)point.x, (GLdouble)point.y, (GLdouble)0, model, proj, view, &x, &y, &z );
CString mstr;

mstr.Format("x = %d, y = %d, z = %d", x, y, z);
AfxMessageBox(mstr);

But I am getting wierd coordinates
like x=-1000030243, y=-1293012312,z=-1231231232

I am using Perspective view…

Can any body help me what should i do…

Thanks
aus

Odd - I see your z co-ord is zero? This is surely not correct. You should have a z coord in order to recover the correct x and y for the projection, given the projection z coord.

Usually (often), picking is used to recover a z coord in the buffer associated with a given x, y screen-space coord (your mouse position) - gluUnProject will then recover the correct x, y for that z.

Hope this helps!

(you can use OpenGL selection to get the correct z coord).

HI,
I did not understand Z co-ordinate zero…?
How did you get deduce the z value to zero…
I didn’t understand…

I am relatively new to the Opengl…

Can you explain in little bit more detail…

Thanks
aus

He means when you call gluUnProject() the third parameter is zero.

-Mezz

Ok I got it…thanks a lot
May be I was too tired to pay proper attention to my code…

Can anybody explain …as to how can I get the z value…
Or what should I write in my gluunproject()for the z co-ordinate…

I will appreciate your help

Thanks
aus