Create a texture with cylindrical mapping from script

Question

Hi,

By advance, sorry if my question sounds silly, I've only started learning Unity recently.

I want to display 360° images. Currently, I've done it in Unity editor with success, and my problem is now to load images at runtime (from a local or a remote image file).

To display them, I added a skybox to the main camera. It's material use the "Skybox/Cubemap" shader, and the texture in this material use a "Latitude-Longitude layout (cylindrical).

I've found how to access in C# the material (Camera.main.GetComponent ().material), and I saw that the texture is referenced as "_Cube" (Camera.main.GetComponent ().material.GetTexture ("_Tex")), and is apparently a Cubemap.

Now, I would like to change this texture, and so I want to create a new Cubemap, and load it with an image file, using the same cylindrical mapping.

On a Cubemap, I can only set pixels for 6 faces, so I think that the editor as an algorithm to convert cylindrical coordinates to cube coordinates.

Do you know if this algorithm is available somewhere in C# Unity libs ?

As anyone a more clever way to dynamically load images for skyboxes ? (maybe converting Texture2D to Cubemap, ....)

Answer 1

Hi,

I solved this problem today if anyone is still interested. It may surely not be the best solution but at least it works.

Here's my script (It is attached to a button in order to change the skybox on click):

 using System.Collections;
 using System.Collections.Generic;
 using UnityEngine;
 using Crosstales.FB;
 using UnityEditor;
 using System.IO;
 
 public class Import360 : MonoBehaviour {
 
     private Texture2D importedSkybox;
     public Material modulableSkyboxMat;
     private string directory;
 
     // Use this for initialization
     void Start () {
         directory = "";
         modulableSkyboxMat.shader = Shader.Find("SkyboxPlus/Cubemap");
     }
     
     // Update is called once per frame
     void Update () {
     }
 
     private IEnumerator LoadImages()
     {
         //Download Link
         directory = FileBrowser.OpenSingleFile("Select a 360 TEXTURE file", System.Environment.GetFolderPath(System.Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop), "jpg");
         Debug.Log(directory);
         if (directory != "")
         {
             WWW www = new WWW(directory);
 
             //Wait for the download to complete
             yield return www;
             importedSkybox = www.texture;
 
             //Create path in the asset folders:
             string path = "Assets/Resources/SVLevels/av26.jpg";
 
             //Load Image to modify in the ressource folder
             Texture2D tex2d = Resources.Load<Texture2D>("SVLevels/av26");
 
             //Uptake byte data from downloaded www image
             byte[] imData = importedSkybox.EncodeToJPG();
             File.WriteAllBytes(Application.dataPath + "/Resources/SVLevels/av26.jpg", imData);
 
             //Change the texture to cubemap:
             TextureImporter importer = (TextureImporter)TextureImporter.GetAtPath(path);
             if (tex2d != null && tex2d.dimension != UnityEngine.Rendering.TextureDimension.Cube)
             {
                 importer.textureShape = TextureImporterShape.TextureCube;
                 importer.SaveAndReimport();
             }
 
            // yield return new WaitForSecondsRealtime(1); //INCREASE OR DECREASE THIS TIMING; Depends on the ability of the computer to rapidly execute the previous tasks
 
             //Reference the Skybox material with the newly made cubemap texture ! IT WILL BE A CUBEMAP TO LOAD AGAIN!
             Cubemap finalSkybox = Resources.Load<Cubemap>("SVLevels/av26");
             
             modulableSkyboxMat.mainTexture = finalSkybox;
             RenderSettings.skybox = modulableSkyboxMat;
         }
 
     }
 
 
     public void OnClickChangeEnvironment()
     {
         Cubemap cube2d = Resources.Load<Cubemap>("SVLevels/av26");
 
         string path = "Assets/Resources/SVLevels/av26.jpg";
         TextureImporter importer = (TextureImporter)TextureImporter.GetAtPath(path);
         if (cube2d != null && cube2d.dimension == UnityEngine.Rendering.TextureDimension.Cube)
         {
             importer.textureShape = TextureImporterShape.Texture2D;
             importer.SaveAndReimport();
         }
 
         StartCoroutine("LoadImages");
     }
 
 }

For this script to work you will need 2 things in your Asset Folder:

A Texture2D that will be updated when uploading a new www.texture (in my case it is av26.jpg)
A material that will be set to Skybox/Cubemap and will take the newly uploaded texture as input after the latter has been changed to cubemap (in my case: modulableSkyboxMat)

Both elements were placed in a folder in the Asset folder. (in my case: Assets/Resources/SVLevels)

Hope this helps others! :)

Create a texture with cylindrical mapping from script

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