Real-Time 3D Graphics with WebGL 2 - Second Edition

Orbiting Camera

So far, we've learned how to generate rotations and translations in either world or camera coordinates. In both cases, however, we are always generating the rotations around the center of the world. This may be ideal when we're orbiting around a 3D object, such as our car model. In that example, you put the object at the center of the world, and then examine the object at different angles (rotation); after that, you can move away (translation) to see the result. We will refer to this type of camera as an orbiting camera.