This node defines one or more strings of 3D text. In contrast with OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoText2, 3D text can be rotated, scaled, lighted, and textured like all other 3D shapes.

Optionally (setting the OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoText3.parts field) each character in a 3D text string may be a true three dimensional object. This shape is created by extruding an outlined version of the character (in the current typeface) along the current profile, as defined by nodes derived from OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoProfile. The default text profile, if none is specified, is a straight line segment one unit long.

The text position is always at the local origin (0,0,0). A transform node, e.g. OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoTranslation, must be used to position the text in 3D space.

The text is always rendered in its local XY plane. A transform node, e.g. OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoRotation, may be used to rotate the text plane in 3D space.

Text supports both single byte Latin1 (ISO8859-1) characters and multi-byte UNICODE characters. ISO8859-1 is an 8-bit character set which is a superset of the older 7-bit ASCII character set. See the String class for more information.

Rendering:

The typeface and size (default = 10) are specified using an OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoFont node. The scale factor, if any, in the current transform is applied to this size.

3D text characters may be rendered using lines, polygons or textured rectangles depending on settings in the OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoFont node. Textured rendering is recommended. It generally has the best performance (minimum geometry) and the best image quality (because antialiasing is applied).

• Line rendering is selected by specifying a "stroke font" name in the OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoFont name field. In this case line attributes apply instead of polygon attributes and text is not extruded.

• Polygon rendering is selected by setting the OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoFont renderStyle field to POLYGON (the default) or POLYGON_AND_OUTLINE.

• Textured quad rendering is selected by setting the OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoFont renderStyle field is set to TEXTURE or TEXTURE_DELAYED.

Rendering styles: Additional styles can be applied using an OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoTextProperty node, including underline, strikethrough, background and background outline.

Complexity: The quality (degree of tesselation) of OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoText3 line and polygon rendering depends on the OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoComplexity node's value field. The quality of OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoText3 textured rendering depends on the OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoComplexity node's value and textureQuality fields, plus the OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoTextProperty node's textureQualityRange field. If there is no OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoComplexity the textureQuality is 1. See OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoFont for more discussion.

Material: OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoText3 uses the current set of materials when rendering but only OVERALL, PER_PART and PER_PART_INDEXED. Any other binding will behave like OVERALL. If the material binding is OVERALL, then the whole text is drawn with the first material. If it is PER_PART or PER_PART_INDEXED, the front part of the text is drawn with the first material, the sides with the second, and the back with the third.

Lighting: By default lighting is only computed for the "front" face of geometry, including OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoText3, meaning that the back face of the text will be black when lighting is enabled. To illuminate both sides, enable "two sided" lighting using the OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoShapeHints node's vertexOrdering field. But note that, unlike most geometry, you should set the vertexOrdering field to CLOCKWISE, not COUNTERCLOCKWISE.

Texture: Textures are applied to 3D text as follows. On the front and back faces of the text, the texture origin is at the base point of the first string; the base point is at the lower left for justification LEFT, at the lower right for RIGHT, and at the lower center for CENTER. The texture is scaled equally in both S and T dimensions, with the font height representing 1 unit. S increases to the right on the front faces and to the left on the back faces. On the sides, the texture is scaled the same as on the front and back. S is equal to 0 at the rear edge of the side faces. The T origin can occur anywhere along each character, depending on how that character's outline is defined.

Performance: A scene graph containing a large number of OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoText3 nodes will generally have much better rendering performance using a text specific caching mechanism called accumulation rendering mode. However some features are not available and significant time may be required to build (or rebuild) this cache. See the OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoTextProperty node enableTextAccumulation field for more information.

Justification:

Horizontal alignment of the text can be specified using the OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoText3.justification field. Both horizontal and vertical alignment can be controlled using an OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoTextProperty node, however the justification setting in this node overrides the horizontal setting unless the justification field is set to INHERITED.

Picking:

Text can be picked (OIV.Inventor.Actions.SoRayPickAction) like any other geometry. If a text node has been picked then OIV.Inventor.SoPickedPoint can return an OIV.Inventor.Details.SoTextDetail object. This object contains information about which string (in a multi-string text node) was picked and which character within the string was picked.

Antialiasing: Shape Antialiasing type is OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoShape.ShapeTypes.TEXT.

FILE FORMAT/DEFAULT

Text3 {

string	""
spacing	1
justification	LEFT
parts	FRONT

}

ACTION BEHAVIOR

OIV.Inventor.Actions.SoGLRenderAction Draws text based on the current font, profiles, transformation, drawing style, material, texture, complexity, and so on.

OIV.Inventor.Actions.SoRayPickAction Performs a pick on the text. The string index and character position are available from the OIV.Inventor.Details.SoTextDetail.

OIV.Inventor.Actions.SoGetBoundingBoxAction Computes the bounding box that encloses the text.

OIV.Inventor.Actions.SoCallbackAction For non-stroke fonts,if any triangle callbacks are registered with the action, they will be invoked for each successive triangle used to approximate the text geometry.

For stroke fonts, if any line segment callbacks are registered with the action, they will be invoked for each successive line segment used to approximate the text geometry.

Reference