<CameraControls>

This component is a declarative implementation of the popular camera-controls library.

Show Code

• App.svelte
• Scene.svelte

<script lang="ts">
  import Scene from './Scene.svelte'
  import { Button, Checkbox, Pane, Separator } from 'svelte-tweakpane-ui'
  import { Canvas } from '@threlte/core'
  import type { CameraControlsRef } from '@threlte/extras'
  import { type Mesh, MathUtils } from 'three'

  let controls = $state.raw<CameraControlsRef>()
  let mesh = $state.raw<Mesh>()

  /**
   * controls.enabled can not be bound to since its not reactive
   */
  let enabled = $state(true)
  $effect(() => {
    if (controls !== undefined) {
      controls.enabled = enabled
    }
  })
</script>

<Pane
  title="Camera Controls"
  position="fixed"
>
  <Button
    title="rotate theta 45deg"
    on:click={() => {
      controls?.rotate(45 * MathUtils.DEG2RAD, 0, true)
    }}
  />
  <Button
    title="rotate theta -90deg"
    on:click={() => {
      controls?.rotate(-90 * MathUtils.DEG2RAD, 0, true)
    }}
  />
  <Button
    title="rotate theta 360deg"
    on:click={() => {
      controls?.rotate(360 * MathUtils.DEG2RAD, 0, true)
    }}
  />
  <Button
    title="rotate phi 20deg"
    on:click={() => {
      controls?.rotate(0, 20 * MathUtils.DEG2RAD, true)
    }}
  />
  <Separator />
  <Button
    title="truck(1, 0)"
    on:click={() => {
      controls?.truck(1, 0, true)
    }}
  />
  <Button
    title="truck(0, 1)"
    on:click={() => {
      controls?.truck(0, 1, true)
    }}
  />
  <Button
    title="truck(-1, -1)"
    on:click={() => {
      controls?.truck(-1, -1, true)
    }}
  />
  <Separator />
  <Button
    title="dolly 1"
    on:click={() => {
      controls?.dolly(1, true)
    }}
  />
  <Button
    title="dolly -1"
    on:click={() => {
      controls?.dolly(-1, true)
    }}
  />
  <Separator />
  <Button
    title="zoom `camera.zoom / 2`"
    on:click={() => {
      controls?.zoom(controls.camera.zoom / 2, true)
    }}
  />
  <Button
    title="zoom `- camera.zoom / 2`"
    on:click={() => {
      controls?.zoom(-controls.camera.zoom / 2, true)
    }}
  />
  <Separator />
  <Button
    title="move to ( 3, 5, 2)"
    on:click={() => {
      controls?.moveTo(3, 5, 2, true)
    }}
  />
  <Button
    title="fit to the bounding box of the mesh"
    on:click={() => {
      if (mesh !== undefined) {
        controls?.fitToBox(mesh, true)
      }
    }}
  />
  <Separator />
  <Button
    title="set position to ( -5, 2, 1 )"
    on:click={() => {
      controls?.setPosition(-5, 2, 1, true)
    }}
  />
  <Button
    title="look at ( 3, 0, -3 )"
    on:click={() => {
      controls?.setTarget(3, 0, -3, true)
    }}
  />
  <Button
    title="move to ( 1, 2, 3 ), look at ( 1, 1, 0 )"
    on:click={() => {
      controls?.setLookAt(1, 2, 3, 1, 1, 0, true)
    }}
  />
  <Separator />
  <Button
    title="move to somewhere between ( -2, 0, 0 ) -> ( 1, 1, 0 ) and ( 0, 2, 5 ) -> ( -1, 0, 0 )"
    on:click={() => {
      controls?.lerpLookAt(-2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 2, 5, -1, 0, 0, Math.random(), true)
    }}
  />
  <Separator />
  <Button
    title="reset"
    on:click={() => {
      controls?.reset(true)
    }}
  />
  <Button
    title="saveState"
    on:click={() => {
      controls?.saveState()
    }}
  />
  <Separator />
  <Checkbox
    bind:value={enabled}
    label="enabled"
  />
</Pane>

<Canvas>
  <Scene
    bind:controls
    bind:mesh
  />
</Canvas>

<script lang="ts">
  import { Mesh } from 'three'
  import { T } from '@threlte/core'
  import { Grid, CameraControls, type CameraControlsRef } from '@threlte/extras'

  let {
    controls = $bindable(),
    mesh = $bindable()
  }: {
    controls?: CameraControlsRef
    mesh?: Mesh
  } = $props()
</script>

<CameraControls
  bind:ref={controls}
  oncreate={(ref) => {
    ref.setPosition(5, 5, 5)
  }}
/>

<T.Mesh
  bind:ref={mesh}
  position.y={0.5}
>
  <T.BoxGeometry />
  <T.MeshBasicMaterial
    color="#ff3e00"
    wireframe
  />
</T.Mesh>

<Grid
  sectionColor="#ff3e00"
  sectionThickness={1}
  cellColor="#cccccc"
  gridSize={40}
/>

If the controls are set as a child component of a camera, they will attach to that camera.

<T.PerspectiveCamera makeDefault>
  <CameraControls />
</T.PerspectiveCamera>

A camera can also optionally be passed to the controls as a prop.

<CameraControls camera={myPerspectiveCamera} />

Finally, if the component is created without an attached camera it will use the scene’s default camera as provided by useThrelte.

Examples

Basic Example

CameraControls.svelte

<script lang="ts">
  import { CameraControls, type CameraControlsRef } from '@threlte/extras'

  let controls = $state<CameraControlsRef>()

  $effect.pre(() => {
    controls?.truck(1, 0, true)
  })
</script>

<CameraControls
  bind:ref={controls}
  oncreate={(ref) => ref.setPosition(5, 5, 5)}
/>

Prevent SSR Externalization

If you are using SvelteKit or Vite for building your app, you may need to externalize the camera-controls library.

To externalize the camera-controls library put the following in your vite.config.js or vite.config.ts.

vite.config.ts

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [sveltekit()],
  ssr: {
    noExternal: ['camera-controls']
  }
})

The camera-controls package features include first-person, third-person, pointer-lock, fit-to-bounding-sphere and much more!