A slow ring of camera-facing discs that answers "what is under the pointer" without a raycaster. Because every disc is parallel to the image plane, the pick reduces to intersecting the pointer ray with one plane per disc and comparing the hit against the radius — four arithmetic operations, no traversal, no allocation, and exact rather than approximate. It is also the only correct answer here: the billboard happens in the vertex shader, so `Raycaster` intersects a square that is not on screen.
Also installs webgl, damp, prng, use-raf, use-reduced-motion, use-resize-observer from this registry.
03
Prompt
The whole technique, written for an agent.
Build it with your agent
A single self-contained brief: the technique, the constants and why they hold, the pitfalls, and the definition of done. Paste it and the component gets written in your own conventions instead of copied in ours.
# Build: Analytic Disc PickingA slow ring of camera-facing discs that answers "what is under the pointer" without a raycaster. Because every disc is parallel to the image plane, the pick reduces to intersecting the pointer ray with one plane per disc and comparing the hit against the radius — four arithmetic operations, no traversal, no allocation, and exact rather than approximate. It is also the only correct answer here: the billboard happens in the vertex shader, so `Raycaster` intersects a square that is not on screen.Build this as a React component in my project. Match my existing conventions —file layout, styling system, and naming — rather than the ones implied below.Everything after this line is specification, not code to copy verbatim.## What it doesHit-test camera-facing discs by intersecting the pointer ray with their plane. Exact, allocation-free, and correct for shader billboards.- Category: primitive- Runtime cost: webgl- Dependencies: three@^0.185.1## How it works1. The vertex shader billboards in view space: `vec4 mv = modelViewMatrix * vec4(0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0); mv.xy += position.xy * uScale;` takes only the translation out of the model-view matrix and adds the quad offset afterwards. The mesh's rotation and scale never reach a vertex, so the disc is always exactly parallel to the image plane and its view-space radius is exactly `uRadius * uScale`.2. Because the disc is parallel to the image plane, its plane normal is the camera's view direction for every disc in the scene. `camera.getWorldDirection(viewDir)` is called once per frame and `plane.setFromNormalAndCoplanarPoint(viewDir, disc.position)` then differs only in its constant.3. `raycaster.setFromCamera(ndc, camera)` builds the pointer ray and nothing else is used from the Raycaster — `intersectObjects` is never called. Constructing the ray is the cheap half of raycasting; the traversal, the per-object matrix inverse, and the per-triangle intersection are the half being skipped.4. `ray.intersectPlane(plane, hit)` returns `Vector3 | null`, and the null case is a free depth rejection: `Ray.distanceToPlane` returns null for `t < 0`, so anything behind the camera drops out before any distance work.5. The winner is the nearest hit along the ray whose distance from the disc centre is within the radius, both compared squared. Depth is tested FIRST — `if (along >= bestAlong) continue;` — so a disc that cannot beat the incumbent never runs its own radius test.6. The pick radius is `uRadius * uScale`, the same two numbers the vertex shader multiplies. Hover eases `uScale` from 1 to 1.14, and the pick reads the eased value in the same frame, so a disc is never clickable over area it has not grown into and never stops being clickable over area it still occupies.7. Every scratch object — ray, plane, hit vector, view direction, NDC vector — is allocated once into the stage object and reused. A pick loop that allocates a `Vector3` per disc per frame produces 780 garbage vectors a second at 60 Hz on a ring of thirteen.8. Rendering is gated on a dirty flag. The flag is set by the spin, by pointer movement, by a hover easing that is still in flight, and by resize. Under `prefers-reduced-motion` the spin never sets it, so the renderer idles at zero draw calls until the pointer moves.## Constants — use these valuesThese are tuned. Each one has a reason; do not round them off or replace themwith values that "look cleaner".- `FOV = 42` Camera vertical field of view in degrees. Wide enough that the near discs are visibly larger than the far ones — which is what makes an analytic test worth having — and narrow enough that the ring does not distort into an oval at preview aspect ratios.- `CAM_Z / ringRadius = 5.6 / 2.15` A ratio of about 2.6. Closer and the front disc overruns the frame at preview width; further and the perspective flattens until a cheap screen-space approximation would have been good enough, which defeats the demonstration.- `discRadius = 0.46` World units, and simultaneously the pick radius. A single source for both is the entire point: two constants that mean "how big is this disc" is how a hit region drifts away from the pixels it is supposed to cover.- `WAVE = 0.34` Vertical amplitude of the sin(2a) offset. Enough that the ring reads as a ribbon rather than a flat carousel; past ~0.6 the discs at the crossings overlap and the nearest-along-the-ray tie-break starts doing visible work the user has no way to predict.- `HOVER_SMOOTHING = 0.0006` Fraction of the hover gap remaining after one second, as `damp` defines it — about 12% of the gap per frame at 60 Hz, settling in roughly 0.2 s. A per-frame constant instead would converge twice as fast on a 120 Hz display and the growth would feel like a different component.- `HOVER_GROWTH = 0.14` A hovered disc grows 14%. Large enough to read at the back of the ring where a disc is a third of its front size, small enough that the grown disc does not swallow its neighbours and make the pick ambiguous.- `FEATHER = 0.035` Rim gradient width in units of the radius — roughly 1.5 px at preview scale. This is why the renderer is built with `antialias: false`: MSAA would pay for an entire extra sample buffer to solve a problem one smoothstep already solved.## API```tsfunction AnalyticDiscPicking(props: { count?: number; period?: number; discRadius?: number; ringRadius?: number; color?: string; accent?: string; seed?: number | string; compare?: boolean; onPick?: (index: number) => void; className?: string }): JSX.Element```- `count: number` — default `13` Discs around the ring.- `period: number` — default `30` Seconds for one revolution.- `discRadius: number` — default `0.46` Disc radius in world units. Also the pick radius — the two cannot drift apart.- `ringRadius: number` — default `2.15` Ring radius in world units.- `color: string` — default `'#7d848e'` Base plate colour. Any value `THREE.Color` accepts.- `accent: string` — default `'#e8e4dc'` Colour of the picked disc.- `seed: number | string` — default `'analytic-disc-picking'` Seeds the per-disc plate pattern. Same seed, same ring every reload.- `compare: boolean` — default `false` Also run a real `Raycaster` each frame and report what it thinks was hit.- `onPick: (index: number) => void` Fired when a disc is clicked, with its index.- `className: string` Merged onto the host element via `cn`.## Reference implementation of the coreThis is the part that is hard to get right. Adapt it; do not treat the rest ofthe component as fixed.```tsxuseRaf((dt) => { const s = stage.current; if (!s) return; // The ring phase is integrated from dt, not read from a wall clock, so // freezing it for reduced motion is a matter of not adding anything. if (!reduced) { spin.current = (spin.current + (TAU / period) * dt) % TAU; dirty.current = true; } // -- place the discs ----------------------------------------------------- for (const disc of s.discs) { const a = disc.phase + spin.current; disc.mesh.position.set( Math.sin(a) * ringRadius, Math.sin(a * 2) * WAVE, Math.cos(a) * ringRadius, ); // `cos(a)` is +1 at the front of the ring and -1 at the back. Remapped // to 0..1 it is the depth fade, and it costs nothing extra here. disc.uniforms.uDepth.value = Math.cos(a) * 0.5 + 0.5; } // No `updateMatrixWorld` here on purpose. The discs are direct children of // the scene at identity, so `mesh.position` IS the world position, and the // camera's matrix was made current in `resize`. The only consumer of the // full matrix graph is `render`, which updates it itself. // -- the analytic pick --------------------------------------------------- let best = -1; const p = pointer.current; if (p) { s.ndc.set(p.x, p.y); // The Raycaster is used for its RAY and nothing else. Building an // NDC-to-world ray by hand means duplicating `unproject`; the expensive // half of raycasting is `intersectObjects`, which is never called. s.raycaster.setFromCamera(s.ndc, s.camera); const ray = s.raycaster.ray; // Every disc is parallel to the image plane, so they all share one // normal — the camera's view direction, already unit length. Only the // plane's constant differs from disc to disc. s.camera.getWorldDirection(s.viewDir); let bestAlong = Infinity; for (let i = 0; i < s.discs.length; i += 1) { const disc = s.discs[i]; if (!disc) continue; s.plane.setFromNormalAndCoplanarPoint(s.viewDir, disc.mesh.position); // `intersectPlane` returns null when the plane is behind the ray // origin, which rejects anything behind the camera for free. Note that // `Ray.distanceToPlane` returns null too but is TYPED `number` in // @types/three — the honest signature is on this method. if (ray.intersectPlane(s.plane, s.hit) === null) continue; // Nearest along the ray wins. Checked first so a disc that cannot // beat the incumbent skips its own radius test. const along = s.hit.distanceToSquared(ray.origin); if (along >= bestAlong) continue; // The drawn radius, hover growth included. `uScale` was eased last // frame and is applied by the vertex shader this frame, so the region // tested is the region rasterised. const r = disc.uniforms.uRadius.value * disc.uniforms.uScale.value; if (s.hit.distanceToSquared(disc.mesh.position) > r * r) continue; bestAlong = along; best = i; } } // -- ease the hover, which the next frame's pick will read --------------- for (let i = 0; i < s.discs.length; i += 1) { const disc = s.discs[i]; if (!disc) continue; const target = i === best ? 1 : 0; const next = damp(disc.hover, target, HOVER_SMOOTHING, dt); if (Math.abs(next - disc.hover) > 0.0005) dirty.current = true; disc.hover = next; disc.uniforms.uHover.value = next; disc.uniforms.uScale.value = 1 + HOVER_GROWTH * next; disc.uniforms.uPicked.value = i === pickedRef.current ? 1 : 0; } if (best !== hovered.current) { hovered.current = best; setHover(best); dirty.current = true; } // -- what a real raycaster would have said ------------------------------- if (compare) { let g = -1; if (p) { // The raycaster reads `matrixWorld`, which `render` would not refresh // until the end of this frame. The analytic path needed no such call — // it reads `position` directly — so this traversal is a cost the // comparison introduces, not one it inherits. s.scene.updateMatrixWorld(); // Reused array, cleared by hand: `intersectObjects` pushes into the // target and sorts it, but never empties it. s.intersects.length = 0; s.raycaster.intersectObjects(s.meshes, false, s.intersects); const first = s.intersects[0]; if (first) g = s.meshes.indexOf(first.object as THREE.Mesh); } if (g !== ghost) setGhost(g); } if (dirty.current) { dirty.current = false; s.renderer.render(s.scene, s.camera); }}, ready && !unsupported);```## RequirementsThese are not optional. A version of this component that skips any of them isnot finished.**Cleanup.** The effect removes every disc from the scene and disposes its `ShaderMaterial`, disposes the one shared `PlaneGeometry`, then calls `disposeRenderer` — which stops the animation loop, disposes the renderer, calls `forceContextLoss()`, and zeroes the drawing buffer — and finally removes the canvas it appended. The canvas is created by the renderer inside the effect and never handed to React, so a StrictMode double-invoke rebuilds a fresh context rather than reusing a killed one. The frame loop unsubscribes with `useRaf`; the shared rAF parks once nothing is subscribed. The `ResizeObserver` unobserves with its hook.**Reduced motion.** The ring holds still: the phase is integrated from delta time, so freezing it is a matter of adding nothing. The dirty flag is then only set by the pointer, which means the renderer draws zero frames until the pointer moves. Picking, hover growth and selection are unaffected — the technique is about where things are, not about them moving.**Frame-rate independence.** Any smoothing must be a function of delta time.`x += (target - x) * 0.1` converges twice as fast at 120 Hz as at 60 Hz; use`x = target + (x - target) * Math.pow(smoothing, dt)` instead, where`smoothing` is the fraction of the gap remaining after one second.**Strict mode.** Assume effects run twice in development. Setup must beidempotent and teardown must fully undo it.## Known pitfalls — avoid these specifically- Reaching for `THREE.Raycaster` against a shader billboard. The vertex shader runs on the GPU; the `BufferGeometry` in main memory is an unrotated square lying in world XY. The raycast intersects that square and reports hits on a shape nobody can see — turn on `compare` and the two readouts disagree the moment the camera is not staring down the world Z axis.- Using `Ray.distanceToPlane` and testing its result for null. It does return null at runtime for a plane behind the ray origin, but `@types/three` declares it as `number`, so the null check is a type error and removing the null check is a crash. `intersectPlane` has the honest `Vector3 | null` signature; use it.- Approximating the disc as a screen-space circle whose NDC radius is `halfDiagonal / (tanHalfFov * camDist)`. That is only correct for a sphere. For a flat disc it over-reports near the edges of frame, where perspective stretches the footprint, so the hover boundary is visibly not the disc boundary. The plane intersection is exact for the same cost.- Deriving the pick radius from a second constant. Hover growth then applies to the pixels but not the hit region, and the disc becomes clickable on a ring of its own body it has already grown past.- Leaving `frustumCulled` on. The culler tests the geometry bounding sphere at the mesh transform, but the vertices are moved by the shader, so a disc vanishes the instant the untransformed square leaves the frustum.- Allocating in the pick loop. `new THREE.Vector3()` per disc per frame is invisible in a profile and unmistakable in a GC trace; reuse a scratch object on the stage.- Enabling depth test on the discs. They are square quads with the corners discarded, so the depth buffer records the quad, not the disc, and neighbouring rims punch holes in each other. Painter's-algorithm sorting is correct here because the billboard leaves the object position — the key three sorts on — untouched.- Handing three's renderer a React-rendered `<canvas ref>`. StrictMode double-invokes the effect, the first cleanup calls `forceContextLoss()`, and the second run is given the same permanently dead element. Let the renderer make its own canvas inside the effect and remove it in cleanup.## Notes- The same reduction works for any primitive with a closed-form ray test: a sphere is `ray.intersectSphere`, an axis-aligned card is `ray.intersectBox`, a ground plane is one `intersectPlane`. Raycasting against triangles is the fallback for arbitrary meshes, not the default for known shapes.- A square quad plus `discard` beats a `CircleGeometry` fan on both counts — two triangles instead of thirty-two, and a rim anti-aliased by a smoothstep instead of a polygon approximated by segments.- The `compare` prop exists to be switched on once. Leave it on in production and you pay for the traversal you set out to avoid, plus an `intersectObjects` call whose result you throw away.## Definition of doneHover a disc at the front of the ring and it brightens and grows, and the readout says `plane hit NN`. Follow one disc as it travels to the back: it stays pickable over exactly its drawn silhouette, smaller but never offset. Set `compare` and hover a disc anywhere off the centre of frame — the `raycast` readout says something different, usually nothing, because it is testing an unrotated square in world XY. Click and the disc under the pointer takes the accent colour. With reduced motion the ring is static and every one of those behaviours still works.When you are finished, tell me which of the requirements above you implementedand where, so I can check them.
'use client';import { useCallback, useEffect, useRef, useState, type PointerEvent as ReactPointerEvent,} from 'react';import * as THREE from 'three';import { cn } from '@/lib/utils';import { useRaf } from '@/hooks/use-raf';import { useReducedMotion } from '@/hooks/use-reduced-motion';import { useResizeObserver } from '@/hooks/use-resize-observer';import { damp } from '@/lib/damp';import { createRng } from '@/lib/prng';import { disposeRenderer, hasWebGL, pixelRatio } from '@/lib/webgl';import { ANALYTIC_DISC_PICKING_FRAG, ANALYTIC_DISC_PICKING_VERT,} from '@/components/motion/shaders/analytic-disc-picking';/* ========================================================================== Analytic Disc Picking -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A ring of camera-facing discs, hit-tested without a raycaster. `THREE.Raycaster` walks the scene, builds an inverse world matrix per object, transforms the ray into object space, and intersects it against every triangle. For a flat disc facing the camera all of that is answering a question you can answer in four arithmetic operations: the disc lies in a plane whose normal is the camera's view direction, so intersect the pointer ray with that plane and ask whether the hit landed within `radius` of the centre. One dot product, one divide, one squared-distance compare. No allocation, no traversal, and EXACT — not an approximation of the disc's screen footprint, but the same circle the shader rasterises. It is also the only correct approach here. The billboard happens in the vertex shader, so the mesh's rotation never reaches the geometry: the `BufferGeometry` in main memory is a square lying in world XY. A raycast intersects that square and answers about a shape nobody can see. Turn on `compare` and watch the two disagree. ========================================================================== */export interface AnalyticDiscPickingProps { /** Discs around the ring. */ count?: number; /** Seconds for one revolution. */ period?: number; /** Disc radius in world units. Also the pick radius — they cannot drift. */ discRadius?: number; /** Ring radius in world units. */ ringRadius?: number; /** Base plate colour. Any value `THREE.Color` accepts. */ color?: string; /** Colour of the picked disc. */ accent?: string; /** Seed for the per-disc plate pattern. Same seed, same ring every reload. */ seed?: number | string; /** * Also run a real `Raycaster` each frame and report what it thinks was hit. * Off by default because it costs an `intersectObjects` traversal per frame; * on, it is the proof that the raycaster is wrong about a shader billboard. */ compare?: boolean; /** Fired when a disc is clicked, with its index. */ onPick?: (index: number) => void; className?: string;}const TAU = Math.PI * 2;/** Camera vertical field of view, degrees. */const FOV = 42;/** Camera distance from the ring centre, world units. */const CAM_Z = 5.6;/** Camera height. Enough lean to see the ring as a ring, not a row. */const CAM_Y = 0.75;/** Amplitude of the vertical wave the discs ride, world units. */const WAVE = 0.34;/** Fraction of the hover gap left after one second. See `damp`. */const HOVER_SMOOTHING = 0.0006;/** How much a hovered disc grows. The pick radius grows with it. */const HOVER_GROWTH = 0.14;interface DiscUniforms { /** three types `uniforms` as an open record; without this it is not assignable. */ [name: string]: THREE.IUniform; uRadius: { value: number }; uScale: { value: number }; uColor: { value: THREE.Color }; uAccent: { value: THREE.Color }; uHover: { value: number }; uPicked: { value: number }; uSeed: { value: number }; uDepth: { value: number };}interface Disc { mesh: THREE.Mesh; material: THREE.ShaderMaterial; uniforms: DiscUniforms; /** Ring phase at t = 0, radians. */ phase: number; /** Eased hover weight, 0..1. Drives both the tint and the pick radius. */ hover: number;}interface Stage { renderer: THREE.WebGLRenderer; scene: THREE.Scene; camera: THREE.PerspectiveCamera; discs: Disc[]; geometry: THREE.PlaneGeometry; /** Scratch, reused every frame. Allocating in a pick loop is the whole bug. */ raycaster: THREE.Raycaster; plane: THREE.Plane; hit: THREE.Vector3; viewDir: THREE.Vector3; ndc: THREE.Vector2; meshes: THREE.Mesh[]; intersects: THREE.Intersection[]; resize: (width: number, height: number) => void;}export function AnalyticDiscPicking({ count = 13, period = 30, discRadius = 0.46, ringRadius = 2.15, color = '#7d848e', accent = '#e8e4dc', seed = 'analytic-disc-picking', compare = false, onPick, className,}: AnalyticDiscPickingProps) { const host = useRef<HTMLDivElement>(null); const stage = useRef<Stage | null>(null); const [unsupported, setUnsupported] = useState(false); /** Pointer in NDC. Null once it leaves — a pick must not survive the exit. */ const pointer = useRef<{ x: number; y: number } | null>(null); /** Ring phase in radians, integrated rather than read off a wall clock. */ const spin = useRef(0); const hovered = useRef(-1); const pickedRef = useRef(-1); /** Redraw request. With reduced motion nothing is drawn until this is set. */ const dirty = useRef(true); const [hover, setHover] = useState(-1); const [picked, setPicked] = useState(-1); const [ghost, setGhost] = useState(-1); const onPickRef = useRef(onPick); onPickRef.current = onPick; const reduced = useReducedMotion(); const { width, height } = useResizeObserver(host); const ready = width > 0 && height > 0; const size = useRef({ width, height }); size.current = { width, height }; useEffect(() => { const el = host.current; if (!el || !ready) return; if (!hasWebGL()) { setUnsupported(true); return; } // The renderer makes its own canvas and this effect owns it start to // finish. A React-rendered `<canvas ref>` cannot be used: StrictMode // double-invokes the effect, the first cleanup calls `forceContextLoss()`, // and the second run is handed the same, now permanently dead, element. const renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer({ antialias: false, alpha: true }); renderer.setPixelRatio(pixelRatio()); renderer.setClearAlpha(0); const scene = new THREE.Scene(); const camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(FOV, 1, 0.1, 100); camera.position.set(0, CAM_Y, CAM_Z); camera.lookAt(0, 0, 0); // One geometry for every disc. It is a SQUARE — the fragment shader carves // the circle out of it — which is two triangles instead of a 32-segment // fan and gives an analytically anti-aliased rim. const geometry = new THREE.PlaneGeometry(discRadius * 2, discRadius * 2); const rng = createRng(seed); const base = new THREE.Color(color); const tint = new THREE.Color(accent); const discs: Disc[] = []; const meshes: THREE.Mesh[] = []; for (let i = 0; i < count; i += 1) { const uniforms: DiscUniforms = { uRadius: { value: discRadius }, uScale: { value: 1 }, uColor: { value: base.clone() }, uAccent: { value: tint.clone() }, uHover: { value: 0 }, uPicked: { value: 0 }, uSeed: { value: rng() }, uDepth: { value: 1 }, }; const material = new THREE.ShaderMaterial({ vertexShader: ANALYTIC_DISC_PICKING_VERT, fragmentShader: ANALYTIC_DISC_PICKING_FRAG, uniforms, transparent: true, // Painter's algorithm. three sorts the transparent pass back to front // by object distance, and the object's POSITION is untouched by the // billboard, so that sort is exactly right. Depth testing a set of // discard-shaped quads would punch holes in the rim anti-aliasing. depthTest: false, depthWrite: false, }); const mesh = new THREE.Mesh(geometry, material); // Never culled: the frustum test uses the geometry's bounding sphere at // the mesh's transform, and the shader moves the vertices somewhere the // culler cannot see. mesh.frustumCulled = false; scene.add(mesh); discs.push({ mesh, material, uniforms, phase: (i / count) * TAU, hover: 0 }); meshes.push(mesh); } el.appendChild(renderer.domElement); renderer.domElement.style.display = 'block'; renderer.domElement.style.width = '100%'; renderer.domElement.style.height = '100%'; const resize = (w: number, h: number) => { renderer.setSize(w, h, false); camera.aspect = w / Math.max(h, 1); camera.updateProjectionMatrix(); // `setFromCamera` reads `matrixWorld`, and nothing else in this component // renders before the first pick can happen. camera.updateMatrixWorld(); dirty.current = true; }; resize(size.current.width, size.current.height); stage.current = { renderer, scene, camera, discs, geometry, raycaster: new THREE.Raycaster(), plane: new THREE.Plane(), hit: new THREE.Vector3(), viewDir: new THREE.Vector3(), ndc: new THREE.Vector2(), meshes, intersects: [], resize, }; return () => { stage.current = null; for (const disc of discs) { scene.remove(disc.mesh); disc.material.dispose(); } // One shared geometry, disposed once. Order matters: release GPU objects // while the context is still alive, then hand the context back. geometry.dispose(); disposeRenderer(renderer); renderer.domElement.remove(); }; }, [ready, count, discRadius, ringRadius, color, accent, seed]); // Resize is its own effect: a container reflow costs a `setSize` call rather // than a teardown and rebuild of thirteen materials. useEffect(() => { stage.current?.resize(width, height); }, [width, height]); const readPointer = useCallback((e: ReactPointerEvent<HTMLDivElement>) => { const el = host.current; if (!el) return; // One rect read per pointer event. NDC is what `setFromCamera` wants: // x right-positive, y UP-positive, both in [-1, 1]. const rect = el.getBoundingClientRect(); if (rect.width === 0 || rect.height === 0) return; pointer.current = { x: ((e.clientX - rect.left) / rect.width) * 2 - 1, y: -(((e.clientY - rect.top) / rect.height) * 2 - 1), }; dirty.current = true; }, []); const clearPointer = useCallback(() => { pointer.current = null; dirty.current = true; }, []); // #region critical useRaf((dt) => { const s = stage.current; if (!s) return; // The ring phase is integrated from dt, not read from a wall clock, so // freezing it for reduced motion is a matter of not adding anything. if (!reduced) { spin.current = (spin.current + (TAU / period) * dt) % TAU; dirty.current = true; } // -- place the discs ----------------------------------------------------- for (const disc of s.discs) { const a = disc.phase + spin.current; disc.mesh.position.set( Math.sin(a) * ringRadius, Math.sin(a * 2) * WAVE, Math.cos(a) * ringRadius, ); // `cos(a)` is +1 at the front of the ring and -1 at the back. Remapped // to 0..1 it is the depth fade, and it costs nothing extra here. disc.uniforms.uDepth.value = Math.cos(a) * 0.5 + 0.5; } // No `updateMatrixWorld` here on purpose. The discs are direct children of // the scene at identity, so `mesh.position` IS the world position, and the // camera's matrix was made current in `resize`. The only consumer of the // full matrix graph is `render`, which updates it itself. // -- the analytic pick --------------------------------------------------- let best = -1; const p = pointer.current; if (p) { s.ndc.set(p.x, p.y); // The Raycaster is used for its RAY and nothing else. Building an // NDC-to-world ray by hand means duplicating `unproject`; the expensive // half of raycasting is `intersectObjects`, which is never called. s.raycaster.setFromCamera(s.ndc, s.camera); const ray = s.raycaster.ray; // Every disc is parallel to the image plane, so they all share one // normal — the camera's view direction, already unit length. Only the // plane's constant differs from disc to disc. s.camera.getWorldDirection(s.viewDir); let bestAlong = Infinity; for (let i = 0; i < s.discs.length; i += 1) { const disc = s.discs[i]; if (!disc) continue; s.plane.setFromNormalAndCoplanarPoint(s.viewDir, disc.mesh.position); // `intersectPlane` returns null when the plane is behind the ray // origin, which rejects anything behind the camera for free. Note that // `Ray.distanceToPlane` returns null too but is TYPED `number` in // @types/three — the honest signature is on this method. if (ray.intersectPlane(s.plane, s.hit) === null) continue; // Nearest along the ray wins. Checked first so a disc that cannot // beat the incumbent skips its own radius test. const along = s.hit.distanceToSquared(ray.origin); if (along >= bestAlong) continue; // The drawn radius, hover growth included. `uScale` was eased last // frame and is applied by the vertex shader this frame, so the region // tested is the region rasterised. const r = disc.uniforms.uRadius.value * disc.uniforms.uScale.value; if (s.hit.distanceToSquared(disc.mesh.position) > r * r) continue; bestAlong = along; best = i; } } // -- ease the hover, which the next frame's pick will read --------------- for (let i = 0; i < s.discs.length; i += 1) { const disc = s.discs[i]; if (!disc) continue; const target = i === best ? 1 : 0; const next = damp(disc.hover, target, HOVER_SMOOTHING, dt); if (Math.abs(next - disc.hover) > 0.0005) dirty.current = true; disc.hover = next; disc.uniforms.uHover.value = next; disc.uniforms.uScale.value = 1 + HOVER_GROWTH * next; disc.uniforms.uPicked.value = i === pickedRef.current ? 1 : 0; } if (best !== hovered.current) { hovered.current = best; setHover(best); dirty.current = true; } // -- what a real raycaster would have said ------------------------------- if (compare) { let g = -1; if (p) { // The raycaster reads `matrixWorld`, which `render` would not refresh // until the end of this frame. The analytic path needed no such call — // it reads `position` directly — so this traversal is a cost the // comparison introduces, not one it inherits. s.scene.updateMatrixWorld(); // Reused array, cleared by hand: `intersectObjects` pushes into the // target and sorts it, but never empties it. s.intersects.length = 0; s.raycaster.intersectObjects(s.meshes, false, s.intersects); const first = s.intersects[0]; if (first) g = s.meshes.indexOf(first.object as THREE.Mesh); } if (g !== ghost) setGhost(g); } if (dirty.current) { dirty.current = false; s.renderer.render(s.scene, s.camera); } }, ready && !unsupported); // #endregion critical const commitPick = useCallback(() => { const next = hovered.current; pickedRef.current = next; setPicked(next); dirty.current = true; if (next >= 0) onPickRef.current?.(next); }, []); return ( <div ref={host} className={cn( 'relative h-full w-full select-none overflow-hidden', hover >= 0 ? 'cursor-pointer' : 'cursor-default', className, )} onPointerMove={readPointer} onPointerDown={readPointer} onPointerLeave={clearPointer} onClick={commitPick} > {unsupported ? ( <div className="absolute inset-0 grid place-items-center"> <div className="flex items-center gap-2"> {Array.from({ length: 5 }, (_, i) => ( <div key={i} className="h-8 w-8 rounded-full border border-line" style={{ opacity: 0.25 + i * 0.15 }} /> ))} </div> </div> ) : null} <div className="pointer-events-none absolute bottom-3 left-3 font-mono text-[10px] uppercase tracking-[0.08em] text-faint"> <span className={hover >= 0 ? 'text-fg' : undefined}> {hover >= 0 ? `plane hit ${String(hover).padStart(2, '0')}` : 'plane no hit'} </span> {compare ? ( <> <span className="mx-2 text-line-strong">/</span> <span className={ghost >= 0 ? 'text-fg' : undefined}> {ghost >= 0 ? `raycast ${String(ghost).padStart(2, '0')}` : 'raycast no hit'} </span> </> ) : null} <span className="mx-2 text-line-strong">/</span> <span className={picked >= 0 ? 'text-accent' : undefined}> {picked >= 0 ? `picked ${String(picked).padStart(2, '0')}` : 'nothing picked'} </span> </div> </div> );}
/* ========================================================================== Analytic Disc Picking — GLSL -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A view-space billboard. The vertex shader takes only the TRANSLATION out of `modelViewMatrix` — the matrix applied to the origin — and adds the quad's local offset afterwards, in view space. The result is always exactly parallel to the image plane no matter where the camera is or what rotation the mesh carries. That is also why `THREE.Raycaster` cannot pick these discs. The rotation never reaches the vertices, so the `BufferGeometry` in main memory is still an axis-aligned square lying in world XY. A raycast intersects that square. The pick has to be done against the shape the shader actually drew, which is what the analytic plane test in the component does. Shipped as a `.ts` template literal rather than a `.glsl` file so that `npx shadcn add` produces something that compiles without a bundler plugin. ========================================================================== *//** * `uRadius` is the quad's half-width, and because the offset is added after * the projection-free part of the transform it is ALSO the disc's radius in * view-space world units. The CPU pick compares against the same number, so * the drawn silhouette and the hit region are the same circle by construction * rather than by agreement. * * `uScale` multiplies that radius. The hover growth rides on it, and the pick * reads the same eased value in the same frame, so a disc is never pickable * over an area it has not grown into yet. */export const ANALYTIC_DISC_PICKING_VERT = /* glsl */ `uniform float uRadius;uniform float uScale;varying vec2 vDisc;void main() { // Local XY normalised to the unit disc. The quad is 2*uRadius across, so // this lands in [-1, 1] on both axes and the fragment shader can work in // units of "fraction of the radius" without knowing the radius. vDisc = position.xy / uRadius; // Column 3 of modelViewMatrix is the mesh origin in view space. Taking it // this way discards the mesh's rotation AND its scale, which is the point: // the billboard must not inherit either. vec4 mv = modelViewMatrix * vec4(0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0); mv.xy += position.xy * uScale; gl_Position = projectionMatrix * mv;}`;/** * Draws the disc inside the square quad and throws the corners away. Using a * two-triangle quad plus `discard` rather than a `CircleGeometry` fan is the * cheaper and better-looking half of the trade: 2 triangles instead of 32, * and a rim that is analytically anti-aliased instead of polygonal. */export const ANALYTIC_DISC_PICKING_FRAG = /* glsl */ `precision highp float;uniform vec3 uColor;uniform vec3 uAccent;/** 0..1, eased on the CPU so hover has weight rather than snapping. */uniform float uHover;/** 0 or 1. Set the instant a click resolves. */uniform float uPicked;/** 0..1 per disc, from a seeded PRNG. Decorrelates the plate pattern. */uniform float uSeed;/** Depth fade, 0 at the back of the ring and 1 at the front. */uniform float uDepth;varying vec2 vDisc;const float PI = 3.141592653589793;/* Rim softness in units of the radius. At preview scale a disc is roughly 90 px across, so 0.035 is about 1.5 px of gradient — enough to kill the staircase on a 1x display, narrow enough that the edge still reads as an edge rather than a glow. */const float FEATHER = 0.035;/* Outline thickness, same units. Below ~0.03 the outline drops below one physical pixel on the far discs and flickers as the ring turns. */const float RIM = 0.055;void main() { float d = length(vDisc); // The corners of the quad. Discarding is correct here rather than wasteful: // it is the only reason a square mesh can stand in for a circle. if (d > 1.0) discard; float disc = 1.0 - smoothstep(1.0 - FEATHER, 1.0, d); float rim = smoothstep(1.0 - RIM - FEATHER, 1.0 - RIM, d) * disc; // Procedural plate art. One angular sweep whose phase comes from the seed, // so a ring of discs reads as a ring of different pieces without a single // byte of texture being uploaded. float a = atan(vDisc.y, vDisc.x) + uSeed * PI * 2.0; float sweep = 0.5 + 0.5 * sin(a * 3.0 + d * 6.0 - uSeed * 4.0); float body = mix(0.30, 0.72, sweep) * (1.0 - 0.42 * d * d); vec3 col = uColor * body; col = mix(col, uAccent * 0.85, uPicked * 0.6); // Hover lifts the whole plate rather than only its outline: at preview size // an outline-only hover is invisible on the discs at the back of the ring. col += uHover * 0.26; col = mix(col, mix(uColor, uAccent, uPicked), rim * (0.30 + 0.70 * uHover)); // Depth is faked in the shader instead of with fog so that the fade is // independent of the camera's near/far planes and survives a resize. float fade = mix(0.30, 1.0, uDepth); gl_FragColor = vec4(col * fade, disc);}`;
/* ========================================================================== Frame-rate-independent interpolation. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The everywhere-idiom `x += (target - x) * 0.1` is a bug: it converges twice as fast on a 120 Hz display as on a 60 Hz one, so the same code feels different on different hardware and visibly speeds up when the browser drops frames. `damp` fixes it by raising the retention factor to the power of elapsed time, which is the exact continuous form of the same curve. ========================================================================== *//** * Fraction of the remaining distance to close this frame. * * @param smoothing Fraction of the gap that REMAINS after one second. * Smaller is snappier. 0.001 ≈ very fast, 0.01 ≈ fast, 0.1 ≈ soft, * 0.5 ≈ slow drift. * @param dt Seconds elapsed since the previous frame. */export function dampFactor(smoothing: number, dt: number): number { return 1 - Math.pow(smoothing, dt);}/** Move `current` toward `target` at a rate independent of frame rate. */export function damp( current: number, target: number, smoothing: number, dt: number,): number { return current + (target - current) * dampFactor(smoothing, dt);}/** * The per-frame lerp constant an author measured at 60fps, converted into the * `smoothing` argument `damp` wants. Lets a source that says "0.1 per frame" * be ported without re-tuning by eye: * * damp(x, t, perFrameToSmoothing(0.1), dt) */export function perFrameToSmoothing(alpha: number, baseFps = 60): number { return Math.pow(1 - alpha, baseFps);}export function lerp(a: number, b: number, t: number): number { return a + (b - a) * t;}export function clamp(v: number, min: number, max: number): number { return v < min ? min : v > max ? max : v;}export function inverseLerp(a: number, b: number, v: number): number { return a === b ? 0 : (v - a) / (b - a);}export function mapRange( v: number, inMin: number, inMax: number, outMin: number, outMax: number, doClamp = true,): number { const t = inverseLerp(inMin, inMax, v); const r = lerp(outMin, outMax, doClamp ? clamp(t, 0, 1) : t); return r;}/** GLSL `smoothstep`, same semantics, for parity between JS and shader code. */export function smoothstep(edge0: number, edge1: number, x: number): number { const t = clamp(inverseLerp(edge0, edge1, x), 0, 1); return t * t * (3 - 2 * t);}/** * Gaussian falloff, `exp(-d²)`. Yields 1.000 / 0.368 / 0.018 / 0.0001 at * distances 0 / 1 / 2 / 3 — a continuous focus scalar with no thresholds and * no branches, which is why carousels that use it feel analogue rather than * stepped. */export function gaussian(distance: number, falloff = 1): number { const d = distance * falloff; return Math.exp(-(d * d));}
/* ========================================================================== Seeded randomness. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- `Math.random()` in a particle field means the server and the client disagree, which React reports as a hydration mismatch, and it means the layout is different on every reload so a visual regression is invisible. Every component that scatters something uses a seeded generator instead. ========================================================================== */export type Rng = () => number;/** * mulberry32 — 32-bit, fast, and good enough for visual scatter. Returns a * function yielding floats in [0, 1). */export function mulberry32(seed: number): Rng { let a = seed >>> 0; return function next() { a = (a + 0x6d2b79f5) >>> 0; let t = a; t = Math.imul(t ^ (t >>> 15), t | 1); t ^= t + Math.imul(t ^ (t >>> 7), t | 61); return ((t ^ (t >>> 14)) >>> 0) / 4294967296; };}/** Turn any string into a 32-bit seed, so `seed="hero"` is reproducible. */export function hashSeed(input: string): number { let h = 2166136261 >>> 0; for (let i = 0; i < input.length; i++) { h ^= input.charCodeAt(i); h = Math.imul(h, 16777619); } return h >>> 0;}export function createRng(seed: number | string): Rng { return mulberry32(typeof seed === 'string' ? hashSeed(seed) : seed);}export function randRange(rng: Rng, min: number, max: number): number { return min + rng() * (max - min);}export function randInt(rng: Rng, min: number, maxExclusive: number): number { return Math.floor(randRange(rng, min, maxExclusive));}/** * Uniform point on a unit sphere. Naive angle-pairing clusters at the poles; * this inverts the cosine so density is even. */export function randOnSphere(rng: Rng): [number, number, number] { const u = rng() * 2 - 1; const theta = rng() * Math.PI * 2; const r = Math.sqrt(1 - u * u); return [r * Math.cos(theta), r * Math.sin(theta), u];}/** Uniform point in a unit disc — `sqrt` prevents crowding at the centre. */export function randInDisc(rng: Rng): [number, number] { const r = Math.sqrt(rng()); const theta = rng() * Math.PI * 2; return [r * Math.cos(theta), r * Math.sin(theta)];}/** In-place Fisher-Yates using the supplied generator. */export function shuffle<T>(rng: Rng, arr: T[]): T[] { for (let i = arr.length - 1; i > 0; i--) { const j = randInt(rng, 0, i + 1); const a = arr[i] as T; const b = arr[j] as T; arr[i] = b; arr[j] = a; } return arr;}
'use client';import { useEffect, useRef } from 'react';/* ========================================================================== One shared requestAnimationFrame loop. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Forty components each calling requestAnimationFrame means forty callbacks the browser schedules separately and forty chances to read layout after a write. One loop, one ordered pass, one place to clamp delta time. Delta is clamped to 100 ms. Without that, returning to a backgrounded tab delivers a multi-second dt and every physics integration in the page explodes on the first frame back. ========================================================================== */export type RafCallback = (dt: number, elapsed: number) => void;const callbacks = new Set<RafCallback>();let frame = 0;let last = 0;let start = 0;const MAX_DT = 0.1;const DEFAULT_DT = 1 / 60;function tick(now: number) { frame = requestAnimationFrame(tick); const dt = last === 0 ? DEFAULT_DT : Math.min((now - last) / 1000, MAX_DT); last = now; const elapsed = (now - start) / 1000; // Copy: a callback may unsubscribe itself (or another) mid-iteration. for (const cb of Array.from(callbacks)) { if (callbacks.has(cb)) cb(dt, elapsed); }}function subscribe(cb: RafCallback) { callbacks.add(cb); if (frame === 0) { start = performance.now(); last = 0; frame = requestAnimationFrame(tick); } return () => { callbacks.delete(cb); if (callbacks.size === 0 && frame !== 0) { cancelAnimationFrame(frame); frame = 0; last = 0; } };}/** * Run `cb` every frame while `enabled`. * * The callback is held in a ref, so it does not need to be memoised and the * subscription is never torn down just because the closure changed identity. */export function useRaf(cb: RafCallback, enabled = true): void { const ref = useRef(cb); ref.current = cb; useEffect(() => { if (!enabled) return; return subscribe((dt, elapsed) => ref.current(dt, elapsed)); }, [enabled]);}
'use client';import { useSyncExternalStore } from 'react';/* ========================================================================== prefers-reduced-motion, SSR-safe. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- useSyncExternalStore rather than useState + useEffect: the server snapshot is an explicit `false`, so the markup React renders on the server and the markup it hydrates with agree, and the real value lands in the same commit as hydration instead of one frame later. A useEffect version flashes the animated variant before removing it — the exact thing the user asked not to see. Reduced motion is not "duration: 0". For most components here it means a different render: the final state, a static poster, or a paused frame. ========================================================================== */const QUERY = '(prefers-reduced-motion: reduce)';function subscribe(onChange: () => void) { if (typeof window === 'undefined' || !window.matchMedia) return () => {}; const mql = window.matchMedia(QUERY); mql.addEventListener('change', onChange); return () => mql.removeEventListener('change', onChange);}function getSnapshot() { if (typeof window === 'undefined' || !window.matchMedia) return false; return window.matchMedia(QUERY).matches;}function getServerSnapshot() { return false;}export function useReducedMotion(): boolean { return useSyncExternalStore(subscribe, getSnapshot, getServerSnapshot);}/** Generic media-query hook, same SSR guarantees. */export function useMediaQuery(query: string): boolean { return useSyncExternalStore( (onChange) => { if (typeof window === 'undefined' || !window.matchMedia) return () => {}; const mql = window.matchMedia(query); mql.addEventListener('change', onChange); return () => mql.removeEventListener('change', onChange); }, () => { if (typeof window === 'undefined' || !window.matchMedia) return false; return window.matchMedia(query).matches; }, () => false, );}
'use client';import { useEffect, useState, type RefObject } from 'react';/* ========================================================================== Element size, from one shared ResizeObserver. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sized from the element rather than the window because a preview in a grid cell resizes when the grid reflows, not when the viewport does. Reading `window.innerWidth` is the reason so many canvas components are correct on load and wrong after a sidebar opens. ========================================================================== */export interface Size { width: number; height: number;}type Handler = (size: Size) => void;let observer: ResizeObserver | null = null;const handlers = new Map<Element, Handler>();function ensureObserver(): ResizeObserver | null { if (typeof ResizeObserver === 'undefined') return null; observer ??= new ResizeObserver((entries) => { for (const entry of entries) { const box = entry.contentBoxSize?.[0]; const size: Size = box ? { width: box.inlineSize, height: box.blockSize } : { width: entry.contentRect.width, height: entry.contentRect.height }; handlers.get(entry.target)?.(size); } }); return observer;}export function useResizeObserver(ref: RefObject<Element | null>): Size { const [size, setSize] = useState<Size>({ width: 0, height: 0 }); useEffect(() => { const el = ref.current; const ro = ensureObserver(); if (!el || !ro) return; // Seed synchronously: waiting for the first observer callback leaves one // frame where a canvas is sized 0x0, which some drivers log as an error. const rect = el.getBoundingClientRect(); setSize({ width: rect.width, height: rect.height }); handlers.set(el, (next) => setSize((prev) => prev.width === next.width && prev.height === next.height ? prev : next, ), ); ro.observe(el); return () => { handlers.delete(el); ro.unobserve(el); }; }, [ref]); return size;}
import type * as THREE from 'three';/* ========================================================================== WebGL context lifecycle. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chromium allows roughly 16 live WebGL contexts per RENDERER PROCESS (8 on low-end devices). Creating the 17th does not fail — it fires `webglcontextlost` on the OLDEST one, so an unrelated component elsewhere on the page goes black. Same-origin iframes share the renderer process, so isolating previews in iframes does not raise the ceiling. The only real fix is to release contexts on unmount, and `renderer.dispose()` ALONE DOES NOT DO THAT. It frees GPU objects but leaves the context itself alive until GC decides otherwise, which may be never. `forceContextLoss()` is the call that actually hands it back. ========================================================================== *//** * Fully release a three.js renderer. Call this in the `useEffect` cleanup of * any component that constructs a `WebGLRenderer` — the preview host drives * unmount via `<Activity mode="hidden">`, so ordinary cleanup IS the disposal * path and nothing component-specific is required. */export function disposeRenderer(renderer: THREE.WebGLRenderer | null | undefined): void { if (!renderer) return; // Stop the loop first: a queued frame that renders into a lost context // throws, and the throw escapes the cleanup function. renderer.setAnimationLoop(null); renderer.dispose(); renderer.forceContextLoss(); const canvas = renderer.domElement; if (canvas) { // Zeroing the backing store releases the drawing buffer immediately // instead of holding width×height×4 bytes until the node is collected. canvas.width = 0; canvas.height = 0; }}/** * Release a raw WebGL context (ogl, or hand-written GL). The extension is the * only portable way to do it; it is absent in some headless configurations, * hence the optional call. */export function loseContext(gl: WebGLRenderingContext | WebGL2RenderingContext | null | undefined): void { if (!gl) return; gl.getExtension('WEBGL_lose_context')?.loseContext();}/** Recursively dispose geometries, materials and textures under a root. */export function disposeObject(root: THREE.Object3D | null | undefined): void { if (!root) return; root.traverse((obj) => { const mesh = obj as THREE.Mesh; mesh.geometry?.dispose?.(); const material = mesh.material; if (!material) return; const materials = Array.isArray(material) ? material : [material]; for (const m of materials) { for (const value of Object.values(m as unknown as Record<string, unknown>)) { if (value && typeof value === 'object' && 'isTexture' in value) { (value as THREE.Texture).dispose(); } } m.dispose?.(); } });}/** * Device pixel ratio capped for fill-rate. Above 2 the visual gain is nil and * the cost is quadratic; on a 3x phone an uncapped full-screen shader is the * single most common cause of a janky first paint. */export function pixelRatio(max = 2): number { if (typeof window === 'undefined') return 1; return Math.min(window.devicePixelRatio || 1, max);}/** * Whether WebGL is actually available. Some browsers expose the constructor * but fail to create a context (blocklisted GPU, no hardware acceleration); * a component that assumes success renders a permanently blank box. */export function hasWebGL(): boolean { if (typeof document === 'undefined') return false; try { const canvas = document.createElement('canvas'); const gl = canvas.getContext('webgl2') ?? canvas.getContext('webgl') ?? canvas.getContext('experimental-webgl'); if (!gl) return false; (gl as WebGLRenderingContext).getExtension('WEBGL_lose_context')?.loseContext(); return true; } catch { return false; }}
05
API
Every parameter, its type and what happens when you change it.
Disc radius in world units. Also the pick radius — the two cannot drift apart.
ringRadius
number
= 2.15
Ring radius in world units.
color
string
= '#7d848e'
Base plate colour. Any value THREE.Color accepts.
accent
string
= '#e8e4dc'
Colour of the picked disc.
seed
number | string
= 'analytic-disc-picking'
Seeds the per-disc plate pattern. Same seed, same ring every reload.
compare
boolean
= false
Also run a real Raycaster each frame and report what it thinks was hit.
onPick
(index: number) => void
—
Fired when a disc is clicked, with its index.
className
string
—
Merged onto the host element via cn.
06
How it works
The technique in order, not the code in order.
01
The vertex shader billboards in view space: vec4 mv = modelViewMatrix * vec4(0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0); mv.xy += position.xy * uScale; takes only the translation out of the model-view matrix and adds the quad offset afterwards. The mesh's rotation and scale never reach a vertex, so the disc is always exactly parallel to the image plane and its view-space radius is exactly uRadius * uScale.
02
Because the disc is parallel to the image plane, its plane normal is the camera's view direction for every disc in the scene. camera.getWorldDirection(viewDir) is called once per frame and plane.setFromNormalAndCoplanarPoint(viewDir, disc.position) then differs only in its constant.
03
raycaster.setFromCamera(ndc, camera) builds the pointer ray and nothing else is used from the Raycaster — intersectObjects is never called. Constructing the ray is the cheap half of raycasting; the traversal, the per-object matrix inverse, and the per-triangle intersection are the half being skipped.
04
ray.intersectPlane(plane, hit) returns Vector3 | null, and the null case is a free depth rejection: Ray.distanceToPlane returns null for t < 0, so anything behind the camera drops out before any distance work.
05
The winner is the nearest hit along the ray whose distance from the disc centre is within the radius, both compared squared. Depth is tested FIRST — if (along >= bestAlong) continue; — so a disc that cannot beat the incumbent never runs its own radius test.
06
The pick radius is uRadius * uScale, the same two numbers the vertex shader multiplies. Hover eases uScale from 1 to 1.14, and the pick reads the eased value in the same frame, so a disc is never clickable over area it has not grown into and never stops being clickable over area it still occupies.
07
Every scratch object — ray, plane, hit vector, view direction, NDC vector — is allocated once into the stage object and reused. A pick loop that allocates a Vector3 per disc per frame produces 780 garbage vectors a second at 60 Hz on a ring of thirteen.
08
Rendering is gated on a dirty flag. The flag is set by the spin, by pointer movement, by a hover easing that is still in flight, and by resize. Under prefers-reduced-motion the spin never sets it, so the renderer idles at zero draw calls until the pointer moves.
Load-bearing constants
Load-bearing constants
Constant
Value
Why this number
FOV
= 42
Camera vertical field of view in degrees. Wide enough that the near discs are visibly larger than the far ones — which is what makes an analytic test worth having — and narrow enough that the ring does not distort into an oval at preview aspect ratios.
CAM_Z / ringRadius
= 5.6 / 2.15
A ratio of about 2.6. Closer and the front disc overruns the frame at preview width; further and the perspective flattens until a cheap screen-space approximation would have been good enough, which defeats the demonstration.
discRadius
= 0.46
World units, and simultaneously the pick radius. A single source for both is the entire point: two constants that mean "how big is this disc" is how a hit region drifts away from the pixels it is supposed to cover.
WAVE
= 0.34
Vertical amplitude of the sin(2a) offset. Enough that the ring reads as a ribbon rather than a flat carousel; past ~0.6 the discs at the crossings overlap and the nearest-along-the-ray tie-break starts doing visible work the user has no way to predict.
HOVER_SMOOTHING
= 0.0006
Fraction of the hover gap remaining after one second, as damp defines it — about 12% of the gap per frame at 60 Hz, settling in roughly 0.2 s. A per-frame constant instead would converge twice as fast on a 120 Hz display and the growth would feel like a different component.
HOVER_GROWTH
= 0.14
A hovered disc grows 14%. Large enough to read at the back of the ring where a disc is a third of its front size, small enough that the grown disc does not swallow its neighbours and make the pick ambiguous.
FEATHER
= 0.035
Rim gradient width in units of the radius — roughly 1.5 px at preview scale. This is why the renderer is built with antialias: false: MSAA would pay for an entire extra sample buffer to solve a problem one smoothstep already solved.
07
Behaviour
What it does about motion sensitivity, teardown and being finished.
Reduced motion
The ring holds still: the phase is integrated from delta time, so freezing it is a matter of adding nothing. The dirty flag is then only set by the pointer, which means the renderer draws zero frames until the pointer moves. Picking, hover growth and selection are unaffected — the technique is about where things are, not about them moving.
Cleanup
The effect removes every disc from the scene and disposes its ShaderMaterial, disposes the one shared PlaneGeometry, then calls disposeRenderer — which stops the animation loop, disposes the renderer, calls forceContextLoss(), and zeroes the drawing buffer — and finally removes the canvas it appended. The canvas is created by the renderer inside the effect and never handed to React, so a StrictMode double-invoke rebuilds a fresh context rather than reusing a killed one. The frame loop unsubscribes with useRaf; the shared rAF parks once nothing is subscribed. The ResizeObserver unobserves with its hook.
Definition of done
Hover a disc at the front of the ring and it brightens and grows, and the readout says plane hit NN. Follow one disc as it travels to the back: it stays pickable over exactly its drawn silhouette, smaller but never offset. Set compare and hover a disc anywhere off the centre of frame — the raycast readout says something different, usually nothing, because it is testing an unrotated square in world XY. Click and the disc under the pointer takes the accent colour. With reduced motion the ring is static and every one of those behaviours still works.
Pitfalls
Reaching for THREE.Raycaster against a shader billboard. The vertex shader runs on the GPU; the BufferGeometry in main memory is an unrotated square lying in world XY. The raycast intersects that square and reports hits on a shape nobody can see — turn on compare and the two readouts disagree the moment the camera is not staring down the world Z axis.
Using Ray.distanceToPlane and testing its result for null. It does return null at runtime for a plane behind the ray origin, but @types/three declares it as number, so the null check is a type error and removing the null check is a crash. intersectPlane has the honest Vector3 | null signature; use it.
Approximating the disc as a screen-space circle whose NDC radius is halfDiagonal / (tanHalfFov * camDist). That is only correct for a sphere. For a flat disc it over-reports near the edges of frame, where perspective stretches the footprint, so the hover boundary is visibly not the disc boundary. The plane intersection is exact for the same cost.
Deriving the pick radius from a second constant. Hover growth then applies to the pixels but not the hit region, and the disc becomes clickable on a ring of its own body it has already grown past.
Leaving frustumCulled on. The culler tests the geometry bounding sphere at the mesh transform, but the vertices are moved by the shader, so a disc vanishes the instant the untransformed square leaves the frustum.
Allocating in the pick loop. new THREE.Vector3() per disc per frame is invisible in a profile and unmistakable in a GC trace; reuse a scratch object on the stage.
Enabling depth test on the discs. They are square quads with the corners discarded, so the depth buffer records the quad, not the disc, and neighbouring rims punch holes in each other. Painter's-algorithm sorting is correct here because the billboard leaves the object position — the key three sorts on — untouched.
Handing three's renderer a React-rendered <canvas ref>. StrictMode double-invokes the effect, the first cleanup calls forceContextLoss(), and the second run is given the same permanently dead element. Let the renderer make its own canvas inside the effect and remove it in cleanup.
Notes
The same reduction works for any primitive with a closed-form ray test: a sphere is ray.intersectSphere, an axis-aligned card is ray.intersectBox, a ground plane is one intersectPlane. Raycasting against triangles is the fallback for arbitrary meshes, not the default for known shapes.
A square quad plus discard beats a CircleGeometry fan on both counts — two triangles instead of thirty-two, and a rim anti-aliased by a smoothstep instead of a polygon approximated by segments.
The compare prop exists to be switched on once. Leave it on in production and you pay for the traversal you set out to avoid, plus an intersectObjects call whose result you throw away.