How do you load and display SVG graphics in three.js? - svg

Question

Consider, I have an SVG vector graphics file (logotype), which I want to load and display in three.js (with WebGL renderer).
What would be the recommended way to approach this?
It seems like I need to load the image and to create a geometry and a mesh from it.
I've managed to load the SVG document using the THREE.SVGLoader, but I can't find any relevant information on how to create a geometry/mesh from it further down the line.
function preload () {
const svgLoader = new THREE.SVGLoader();
svgLoader.load('images/logo.svg', svgDocument => {
// #todo: create a geometry/mesh from svgDocument?
// #todo: scene.add(logoMesh);
});
}

Answer 1

Texture
If you need svg only for texture purposes:
Render svg image to canvas
use that canvas as source of texture
use texture in your scene...
Disclaimer I'm not the author of this code, I just fixed jsfiddle that I've found
window.onload = () => {
var mesh;
var scene = new THREE.Scene();
var camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(50, 500 / 400, 0.1, 1000);
camera.position.z = 10;
var renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer({ antialias: true });
renderer.setSize(500, 400);
document.body.appendChild(renderer.domElement);
var svg = document.getElementById("svgContainer").querySelector("svg");
var svgData = (new XMLSerializer()).serializeToString(svg);
var canvas = document.createElement("canvas");
var svgSize = svg.getBoundingClientRect();
canvas.width = svgSize.width;
canvas.height = svgSize.height;
var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
var img = document.createElement("img");
img.setAttribute("src", "data:image/svg+xml;base64," + window.btoa(unescape(encodeURIComponent(svgData))) );
img.onload = function() {
ctx.drawImage(img, 0, 0);
var texture = new THREE.Texture(canvas);
texture.needsUpdate = true;
var geometry = new THREE.SphereGeometry(3, 50, 50, 0, Math.PI * 2, 0, Math.PI * 2);
var material = new THREE.MeshBasicMaterial({ map: texture });
material.map.minFilter = THREE.LinearFilter;
mesh = new THREE.Mesh(geometry, material);
scene.add(mesh);
};
var render = function () {
requestAnimationFrame(render);
mesh.rotation.y += 0.01;
renderer.render(scene, camera);
};
render();
}
<script src="https://threejs.org/build/three.min.js"></script>
<div id="svgContainer" style="width: 222px; height: 222px;">
<svg width="200" height="200" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1">
<rect width="200" height="200" fill="lime" stroke-width="4" stroke="pink" />
<circle cx="125" cy="125" r="75" fill="orange" />
<polyline points="50,150 50,200 200,200 200,100" stroke="red" stroke-width="4" fill="none" />
<line x1="50" y1="50" x2="200" y2="200" stroke="blue" stroke-width="4" />
</svg>
</div>
Mesh
If you would like to render svg as geometry I'll would suggest use of some libraries e.g. svg-mesh-3d
Example from docs of svg-mesh-3d
var loadSvg = require('load-svg')
var parsePath = require('extract-svg-path').parse
var svgMesh3d = require('svg-mesh-3d')
loadSvg('svg/logo.svg', function (err, svg) {
if (err) throw err
var svgPath = parsePath(svg)
var mesh = svgMesh3d(svgPath, {
delaunay: false,
scale: 4
})
})
Blender
Alternative options is to use blender to import svg, (optionally) tune geometry and export it to Three.js using Three.js Blender Export