Chapter 6: Text
This chapter describes how to add 2 dimensional (2D) and 3 dimensional
(3D) text to a scene. 2D text is always displayed facing the screen.
3D text appears as an object in the scene and can be viewed from any
direction. The font type and size can be changed for both types of
text and the profile of the 3D text can be modified.
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An SoText2 node is available for creating screen-aligned text.
The origin of the text is (0,0,0) and the origin is transformed by the
current transformation matrix. However, the text itself always faces
the screen. The text can be justified with respect to the origin and
the line spacing can be modified. The 2D text is not affected by
perspective changes. In other words, the height and width of two
dimensional text does not change as the distance from the viewer
changes. Two dimensional text is useful for labeling graphs or points
in a scene.
Figure 6-2 on page 143 shows an example of SoText2 used for
labeling continents on a globe.
The SoFont node can be used to change the font type and size.
The primary difference between SoText3 and SoText2 is
that 3D text has a thickness and can be displayed as solid letters.
SoText3 is not constrained to face the screen. For instance,
if the camera moves above the letters, the tops of the 3 dimensional
letters are displayed on the monitor.
The shape of the text displayed with an SoText3 node can be
changed by applying a custom extrusion profile. The profile can be
defined using either a SoLinearProfile node or an
SoNurbsProfile node. The profile can make the text appear
beveled or curved, instead of blocky.
Figure 6-6 on page 149 shows the same globe as Figure 6-2 but uses an
SoText3 node for defining the labels.
Author/Summarizer:
John Barrus
Up to Summary of The Inventor Mentor
Back to
Chapter 5 - Shapes, Properties, and Binding
On to Chapter 7 - Textures