Package com.openinventor.inventor.nodes

Class SoEnvironment

java.lang.Object
com.openinventor.inventor.Inventor
com.openinventor.inventor.misc.SoBase
com.openinventor.inventor.fields.SoFieldContainer
com.openinventor.inventor.nodes.SoNode
com.openinventor.inventor.nodes.SoEnvironment
All Implemented Interfaces:
SafeDisposable
public class SoEnvironment extends SoNode
Global environment node. This node describes global environmental attributes such as ambient lighting, light attenuation, ambient occlusion and fog.

Ambient light (ambientIntensity and ambientColor) is the amount of global light impinging on each surface point when the lighting model is Phong (see SoLightModel). The ambient light values effectively specify a minimum brightness for all shapes. Even if no light source is directly shining on a surface, the ambient component will light up the surface a little bit to prevent it from being pure black.

Light attenuation (attenuation) is the loss of light intensity over distance. The greater the distance from the light source, the lower the intensity. Attenuation affects all subsequent Point and Spot lights in a scene (see SoLight). See attenuation field for more details.

Ambient occlusion (ambientOcclusion) is a rendering effect that simulates how much of the global ambient light can reach different parts of a shape. Parts that are less exposed to the ambient light, i.e. more occluded, will appear darker. This effect is very useful to better discern the shapes of objects. The ambientOcclusion field controls this effect for shape nodes other than SoVolumeRendering and point sets. (although point sets can "generate" ambient occlusion). SoVolumeRendering also supports ambient occlusion, but it must be enabled using an SoVolumeRenderingQuality node.
Ambient occlusion limitations:

  • Important performance penalty can be experienced on Intel HD and UHD Graphics integrated GPU

    No Ambient Occlusion Ambient Occlusion
    Example with a lineset extracted from a DTI

Fog has one of four types, each of which blends each surface point with the specified fog color (usually set equal to the rendering window background color). Each type interprets the fogVisibility field to be the distance at which fog totally obscures objects. A fogVisibility value of 0 (the default) causes the SoEnvironment node to set up fog so that the visibility is the distance to the far clipping plane of the current camera. Using a fog of type HAZE results in a linear fog between the fogStart value and the fogVisibility value.

File format/default:

Environment {

    ambientIntensity 0.2
    ambientColor 1 1 1
    attenuation 0 0 1
    ambientOcclusion false
    ambientOcclusionIntensity 1.0
    ambientOcclusionRadius 4.0
    fogType NONE
    fogColor 1 1 1
    fogStart 0
    fogVisibility 0
}

Action behavior:

SoGLRenderAction
Sets the current environment parameters to those specified with this node. Successive geometries will be rendered using this environment. Sets: SoEnvironmentElement, SoLightAttenuationElement

See Also:

  • Field Details

    • ambientIntensity

      public final SoSFFloat ambientIntensity
      Intensity of ambient light (for Phong lighting). Default is 0.2.

    • ambientColor

      public final SoSFColor ambientColor
      RGB color of ambient lighting (for Phong lighting). Default is 1, 1, 1.

    • attenuation

      public final SoSFVec3f attenuation
      Squared, linear, and constant light attenuation coefficients (in that order). Default is 0, 0, 1. So, by default, no attenuation is applied.

      Attenuation only applies to Point and Spot lights. In the physical world attenuation is proportional to 1/d^2, where 'd' is the distance from the surface to the light source. However, this function causes the light to decrease very rapidly, so linear and constant coefficients can also be specified. The attenuation factor applied to the light is 1 / (c0*d^2 + c1*d + c2).

    • ambientOcclusion

      public final SoSFBool ambientOcclusion
      If set to true, ambient occlusion is activated. Default is false

      Limitation:

      • Important performance penalty can be experienced on Intel HD and UHD Graphics integrated GPU

      Since:
      Open Inventor 10.2

    • ambientOcclusionIntensity

      public final SoSFFloat ambientOcclusionIntensity
      Intensity of ambient occlusion: the higher the value, the darker the scene. Default is 1.0.

      Note: This field is "global", which means that if you have multiple instances of SoEnvironment node, any change in the intensity field of one instance will automatically be applied to the intensity field of the other instances. As a result, the intensity of the ambient occlusion is the same for the whole scene

      Since:
      Open Inventor 10.10

    • ambientOcclusionRadius

      public final SoSFFloat ambientOcclusionRadius
      Specifies the radius of the "sphere" (in world space) beyond which the ambient occlusion has no more effect. Default is 4.0.

      Note: This field is "global", which means that if you have multiple instances of SoEnvironment node, any change in the radius field of one instance will automatically be applied to the radius field of the other instances. As a result, the radius of the ambient occlusion is the same for the whole scene.

      Since:
      Open Inventor 10.10

    • fogType

      public final SoSFEnum<SoEnvironment.FogTypes> fogType
      Type of fog. . Default is NONE.

    • fogColor

      public final SoSFColor fogColor
      Fog color. Default is 1, 1, 1.

    • fogStart

      public final SoSFFloat fogStart
      Distance at which the linear fog HAZE starts to be applied. Default is 0. Between fogStart and fogVisibility, the HAZE fog is linear, and beyond the fogVisibility distance, the fog totally obscures objects. This field has no effect on other types of fog.

    • fogVisibility

      public final SoSFFloat fogVisibility
      Fog visibility distance, which is the distance at which fog totally obscures objects. Default is 0. A value of 0 (the default) causes the SoEnvironment node to set up fog so that the visibility is the distance to the far clipping plane of the current camera.

  • Constructor Details

    • SoEnvironment

      public SoEnvironment()
      Creates an environment node with default settings.