three-mesh-ui

Examples 7.x.x (live)  |  NPM  |  Documentation  |  Contributing

What is it ?

three-mesh-ui is a small library for building VR user interfaces. The objects it creates are three.object3Ds, usable directly in a three.js scene like any other Object3D.

It is not a framework, but a minimalist library to be used with the last version of three.js. It has no dependency but three.js.

Why ?

In a normal three.js workflow, the common practice is to build user interfaces with HTML/CSS.

In immersive VR, it is impossible, therefore this library was created.

Quick Start

Try it now

Give it a try in this jsFiddle

Using react-three-fiber ? Here is a codesandbox to get started.

Import

JSM

With NPM

npm install three-mesh-ui :warning: It requires three as peer dependency

ES6 (codesandbox demo)

import ThreeMeshUI from 'three-mesh-ui'

CommonJS

const ThreeMeshUI = require('three-mesh-ui');

HTML <script> tag (codesandbox demo)

 <!-- Defines the import map -->
<script async src="https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/dist/es-module-shims.js"></script>
<script type="importmap">
{
    "imports": {
        "three": "https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/build/three.module.js",
        "three-mesh-ui": "https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/build/three-mesh-ui.module.js"
    }
}
</script>

<!-- Then we can code our app -->
<script type="module">
    import * as THREE from "three";
    import * as ThreeMeshUI from "three-mesh-ui";

    // code goes here ...
</script>

:muscle: You can use the minified version named three-mesh-ui.module.min.js (codesandbox demo)

JS

HTML <script> tag (codesandbox demo)

<!-- As three-mesh-ui has a peer dependency on three.js -->
<!-- Be sure to load three before three-mesh-ui -->
<script src="https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/build/three.js"></script>

<script src="https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/build/three-mesh-ui.js"></script>

<!-- Then we can code our app -->
<script>
    /* global THREE, ThreeMeshUI */

    // code goes here ...
</script>

:muscle: You can use the minified version named three-mesh-ui.min.js (codesandbox demo)
:warning: Although this would theorically allows you to build 'something', loading js libraries instead of using jsm, might restrict the global features you would have. This is true for both three and three-mesh-ui libraries.

Font files

In order to display some text with three-mesh-ui, you will need to provide font files.
You can use the two files named Roboto-msdf in this directory, or create your own font files

API

Here is an example of basic three-mesh-ui usage :

const container = new ThreeMeshUI.Block({
 width: 1.2,
 height: 0.7,
 padding: 0.2,
 fontFamily: './assets/Roboto-msdf.json',
 fontTexture: './assets/Roboto-msdf.png',
});

//

const text = new ThreeMeshUI.Text({
 content: "Some text to be displayed"
});

container.add( text );

// scene is a THREE.Scene (see three.js)
scene.add( container );

// This is typically done in the render loop :
ThreeMeshUI.update();