osgART HowTo

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This page presents quick solutions to frequently encountered problems with OSG and osgART.

Contents

Building

What is RTTI and why do I need to enable it?

RTTI stands for Run-Time Type Information.

Rendering

How do I draw a cube/sphere/cone?

OSG has built in classes for primitive shapes. See the Basic Shapes page.

How do I draw a height field (terrain)?

See the HeightField page.

How do I hide an object?

Either use an osg::Switch object: 

osg::Switch* switch = new osg::Switch();
switch->addChild(node, false);

or use the node's NodeMask: 

node->setNodeMask(0xFFFFFFFF);  // Visible
node->setNodeMask(0x0);         // Hidden

How do I make an object display in wireframe? 

osg::PolygonMode* polygonMode = new osg::PolygonMode();
 
// Wireframe
polygonMode->setMode(osg::PolygonMode::FRONT_AND_BACK, osg::PolygonMode::LINE);
 
// Filled polygons
polygonMode->setMode(osg::PolygonMode::FRONT_AND_BACK, osg::PolygonMode::FILL);
 
// Points
polygonMode->setMode(osg::PolygonMode::FRONT_AND_BACK, osg::PolygonMode::POINTS);
 
node->getOrCreateStateSet()->setAttributeAndModes(polygonMode, osg::StateAttribute::ON);

How do I display text? 

osg::Geode* textGeode = new osg::Geode();
osgText::Text* text = new osgText::Text();
text->setFont("tahoma.ttf");
text->setCharacterSize(16.0f);
text->setPosition(osg::Vec3(4, 4, 0));
text->setAlignment(osgText::Text::LEFT_BASE_LINE);
text->setColor(osg::Vec4(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f));
text->setText("Your text here");
textGeode->addDrawable(text);

Video

How do I change a video plugin's configuration ?

After getting an instance of the video plugin, but before calling the open() method on the plugin, get a pointer to the plugin's videoConfiguration structure. Change the settings in the structure as desired. When open() is called, the modified config will be used.

This example shows changing the video configuration for the ARToolKit Professional v4 video plugin to load a QuickTime movie from a file. 

	if (!osgART::PluginManager::instance()->load("osgart_video_artoolkit4")) exit(-1);
	osg::ref_ptr<osgART::GenericVideo> video = <osgART::GenericVideo*>(osgART::PluginManager::instance()->get("video_artoolkit4"));
	if (!video.valid()) {   
		osg::notify(osg::FATAL) << "Could not initialize video plugin!" << std::endl;
		exit(-1);
	}
 
	// found video - configure now
	osgART::VideoConfiguration* _config = video->getVideoConfiguration();
	// Check if the Video Device is configurable.
	if (_config) {
#ifdef _WINDOWS
		_config->deviceconfig = "-device=QUICKTIME -movie="file:///C:/Program%20Files/QuickTime/Sample.mov";
#elif defined(__APPLE__);
		_config->deviceconfig = "-device=QUICKTIME -movie="file:///Developer/Examples/WebKit/WebKitMoviePlugin/Sample.mov";
#endif
	}
 
	video->open();

How do I open two video streams using the same video plugin?

After getting the plugin instance, but before opening the video stream, call clone() on the instance. E.g. 

	if (!osgART::PluginManager::instance()->load("osgart_video_artoolkit4")) exit(-1);
	osg::ref_ptr<osgART::GenericVideo> video = <osgART::GenericVideo*>(osgART::PluginManager::instance()->get("video_artoolkit4"));
	if (!video.valid()) {   
		osg::notify(osg::FATAL) << "Could not initialize video plugin!" << std::endl;
		exit(-1);
	}
 
    // Clone the video plugin.
    osg::ref_ptr<osgART::GenericVideo> video2 = dynamic_cast<osgART::GenericVideo*>(video->clone(osg::CopyOp::DEEP_COPY_ALL));
 	if (!video2.valid()) {   
		osg::notify(osg::FATAL) << "Could not clone video plugin!" << std::endl;
		exit(-1);
	}

After the clone operation, you will most likely want to configure the two instances with different configuration strings, before calling open() on both. Also critically: unless a video stream is being used in an ARSceneNode, you will have to call the video stream's update() method manually yourself.

Tracking

How can I reduce tracking jitter?

In osgART, one way is to smooth the tracking transformations using filtering.

How can I adjust the ARToolKit tracker(s)' (binarization) threshhold?

Tracker parameters cannot be adjusted directly (because trackers are actually plugins), so instead are adjusted through a flexible 'field' mechanism.

As the snippet below shows, before getting or setting a value in a tracker, a ref_ptr to the value must be constructed. Don't forget to check the .valid member of the ref_ptr to see if the construction worked.

After that, the ref_ptr can be dereferenced (using the -> operator) to call get and set methods, and more. 

	// Tracker parameters are read and written via a field mechanism.
	// Init access to a field within the tracker, in this case, the binarization threshhold.
	osg::ref_ptr< osgART::TypedField<int> > _threshold = 
		reinterpret_cast< osgART::TypedField<int>* >(tracker->get("threshold"));
 
	// Values are be accessed through a get()/set() mechanism on the field pointer.
	if (_threshold.valid())  {			
		// Set the threshold, and read back.
		_threshold->set(100);
		osg::notify(osg::WARN) << "Field 'threshold' = " << _threshold->get() << std::endl;
	} else {
		osg::notify(osg::WARN) << "Field 'threshold' not supported for this tracker" << std::endl;
	}

How do I show the ARToolKit debug image?

See the page Displaying the ARToolKit debug image in osgART.

How do I change what happens when a marker appears or disappears?

See the page Modifying the behavior of osgART::ARTTransform.

Application

How do I configure what screens/windows an OSG application uses?

To open up fullscreen on screen 1,

using environment variables: 

set OSG_SCREEN=1
osgviewer cow.osg

or using command line: 

osgviewer cow.osg --screen 1

To open in windowed mode (640x480 at 100, 100) : 

set OSG_WINDOW="100 100 640 480"
osgviewer cow.osg

osgviewer cow.osg --window 100 100 500 500

Or just use a osgViewer .view config file 

osgviewer cow.osg -c OpenSceneGaph-Data/Configuration/SmallWindow.view

Or using a Producer .cfg (with OpenSceneGraph 2.4.x) 

osgviewer cow.osg -c myconfig.cfg

Or using environment variables: 

export OSG_CONFIG_FILE=OpenSceneGaph-Data/Configuration/SmallWindow.view
osgviewer cow.osg

How do I get the time? 

osg::Timer_t = osg::Timer::instance()->tick();

How do I tell OSG to quit? 

viewer->setDone(true);

How do I handle command line arguments?

Use the osg::ArgumentParser class. 

int main( int argc, char **argv )
{
    // Use an ArgumentParser object to manage the program arguments
    osg::ArgumentParser arguments(&argc, argv);
 
    std::string stringArgument = "defaultValue";
    while(arguments.read("-myStringArgument", stringArgument));
 
    double doubleArgument = 0.0f;
    while(arguments.read("-myDoubleArgument", doubleArgument));
 
    // And so on for other data types...
 
    // Rest of main...    
 
}

How do I find out what is going on/wrong in my program?

Errors are usually reported using osg::notify. This allows control of the grain of error reporting.

Possible levels for message notifications:

  • ALWAYS - Consume all messages (e.g. for release builds)
  • FATAL - Notify about errors that cannot be recovered from
  • WARN - Warn about errors that may affect correct operation
  • NOTICE - (Default level) Also notify about non-error notices.
  • INFO - Get more non-error info.
  • DEBUG_INFO or DEBUG - Get heaps of non-error info.
  • DEBUG_FP

Changing debug level from within an OSG application

To change the level of reporting you see when an OSG-based application is running, you can globally change the notify level by making a call in the application: 

osg::setNotifyLevel(osg::NOTICE); // Change NOTICE to your desired level.

Changing debug level from outside an OSG application

To change the level of reporting you see when an OSG-based application is running, you can globally change the notify level by setting the environment variable OSGNOTIFYLEVEL.

Unix sh/bash shell: 
export OSGNOTIFYLEVEL=NOTICE
Unix csh/tcsh shell: 
setenv OSGNOTIFYLEVEL NOTICE
Windows cmd-shell: 
set OSG_NOTIFY_LEVEL=NOTICE

See http://www.openscenegraph.org/documentation/OpenSceneGraphReferenceDocs/a01555.html#32e50146c0f96ef6dc821cbc3c0e41d3 for the list of allowable values. The default is WARN.

Reporting errors from within your own OSG code

To report errors and/or supply information to the user in your own code, make a call to osg::notify. If the message should have a level of interest other than the default, supply that as a parameter. E.g. to report some information of minor interest: 

osg::notify(osg::INFO) << "Dude, you may be interested to know that the fribbles have been wibbled." << std::endl;

or to notify of a serious non-recoverable error: 

osg::notify(osg::FATAL) << "Dude, things have gone pear-shaped. We're bailing out." << std::endl;
//throw();

How can I monitor my application's performance?

Use the osgViewer::StatsHandler to get onscreen performance counters.

Where do I put code to update the scene?

One way is to use a Node Callback.

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