Three.js: How can I make a 2D SnapShot of a Scene

Question

I have a three.js scene like the following:

            var scene = new THREE.Scene();
            var camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(75, window.innerWidth/window.innerHeight, 0.1, 1000);

            var renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer();
            renderer.setSize(window.innerWidth, window.innerHeight);
            document.body.appendChild(renderer.domElement);

            var geometry = new THREE.BoxGeometry(1,1,1);
            var material = new THREE.MeshBasicMaterial({color: 0x00ff00});
            var cube = new THREE.Mesh(geometry, material);
            scene.add(cube);

            camera.position.z = 5;

            var render = function () {
                requestAnimationFrame(render);

                cube.rotation.x += 0.1;
                cube.rotation.y += 0.1;

                renderer.render(scene, camera);
            };

            render();

Is it possible to make a 2D SnapShot or ScreenShot from a Scene and export it as a JPG Image?

Answer 1

There are a couple of things you will have to do save the frame as jpg image.

Firstly initialize the webgl context like this

 renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer({
                    preserveDrawingBuffer: true
                });

preserveDrawingBuffer flag will help you to get the base64 encoding of the current frame The code for that will be something like this

var strMime = "image/jpeg";
imgData = renderer.domElement.toDataURL(strMime);

Now secondly you might want to save the file using a .jpg extension, but not all browsers allow you to specify the file name. The best solution I found was in this SO thread.

So our script will check if the browser allows it will create a new anchor element and set its download and click it(which will save the file in specified filename) else it will just download the file but the user will have to rename it with a .jpg extension to open it.

Codepen Link

 var camera, scene, renderer;
    var mesh;
    var strDownloadMime = "image/octet-stream";

    init();
    animate();

    function init() {

        var saveLink = document.createElement('div');
        saveLink.style.position = 'absolute';
        saveLink.style.top = '10px';
        saveLink.style.width = '100%';
        saveLink.style.background = '#FFFFFF';
        saveLink.style.textAlign = 'center';
        saveLink.innerHTML =
            '<a href="#" id="saveLink">Save Frame</a>';
        document.body.appendChild(saveLink);
        document.getElementById("saveLink").addEventListener('click', saveAsImage);
        renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer({
            preserveDrawingBuffer: true
        });
        renderer.setSize(window.innerWidth, window.innerHeight);
        document.body.appendChild(renderer.domElement);

        //

        camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(70, window.innerWidth / window.innerHeight, 1, 1000);
        camera.position.z = 400;

        scene = new THREE.Scene();

        var geometry = new THREE.BoxGeometry(200, 200, 200);



        var material = new THREE.MeshBasicMaterial({
            color: 0x00ff00
        });

        mesh = new THREE.Mesh(geometry, material);
        scene.add(mesh);

        //

        window.addEventListener('resize', onWindowResize, false);

    }

    function onWindowResize() {

        camera.aspect = window.innerWidth / window.innerHeight;
        camera.updateProjectionMatrix();

        renderer.setSize(window.innerWidth, window.innerHeight);

    }

    function animate() {

        requestAnimationFrame(animate);

        mesh.rotation.x += 0.005;
        mesh.rotation.y += 0.01;

        renderer.render(scene, camera);

    }

    function saveAsImage() {
        var imgData, imgNode;

        try {
            var strMime = "image/jpeg";
            imgData = renderer.domElement.toDataURL(strMime);

            saveFile(imgData.replace(strMime, strDownloadMime), "test.jpg");

        } catch (e) {
            console.log(e);
            return;
        }

    }

    var saveFile = function (strData, filename) {
        var link = document.createElement('a');
        if (typeof link.download === 'string') {
            document.body.appendChild(link); //Firefox requires the link to be in the body
            link.download = filename;
            link.href = strData;
            link.click();
            document.body.removeChild(link); //remove the link when done
        } else {
            location.replace(uri);
        }
    }

html, body {
    padding:0px;
    margin:0px;
}
canvas {
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%
}

<script src="http://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/three.js/r69/three.min.js"></script>
<script src="http://threejs.org/examples/js/libs/stats.min.js"></script>