# SoText2 Class Reference
[Nodes]

`#include <Inventor/nodes/SoText2.h>`

Inheritance diagram for SoText2:

List of all members.

## Detailed Description

The SoText2 class is a node type for visualizing 2D text aligned with the camera plane.

SoText2 text is not scaled according to the distance from the camera, and is not influenced by rotation or scaling as 3D primitives are. If these are properties that you want the text to have, you should instead use an SoText3 or SoAsciiText node.

Note that even though the size of the 2D text is not influenced by the distance from the camera, the text is still subject to the usual rules with regard to the depthbuffer, so it will be obscured by graphics laying in front of it.

The text will be positioned according to the current transformation. The x origin of the text is the first pixel of the leftmost character of the text. The y origin of the text is the baseline of the first line of text (the baseline being the imaginary line on which all upper case characters are standing).

One important issue about rendering performance: since the positioning and rendering of an SoText2 node depends on the current viewport and camera, having SoText2 nodes in the scene graph will lead to a cache dependency on the previously encountered SoCamera-node. This can have severe influence on the rendering performance, since if the camera is above the SoText2's nearest parent SoSeparator, the SoSeparator will not be able to cache the geometry under it.

(Even worse rendering performance will be forced if the SoSeparator::renderCaching flag is explicitly set to `ON`, as the SoSeparator node will then continuously generate and destruct the same cache as the camera moves.)

SoText2 nodes are therefore best positioned under their own SoSeparator node, outside areas in the scene graph that otherwise contains static geometry.

Also note that SoText2 nodes cache the ids and positions of each glyph bitmap used to render `string`. This means that `USE` of a `DEF'ed` SoText2 node, with a different font, will be noticeably slower than using two separate SoText2 nodes, one for each font, since it will have to recalculate glyph bitmap ids and positions for each call to `GLrender()`.

SoText2 uses the SoGlyph class to generate glyph bitmaps.

See also:
  SoFont, SoFontStyle, SoText3, SoAsciiText, SoGlyph

## Public Types

enum | Justification { LEFT = 1, RIGHT, CENTER }

## Public Member Functions

| SoText2 (void)
virtual void | GLRender (SoGLRenderAction *action)
virtual void | rayPick (SoRayPickAction *action)
virtual void | getPrimitiveCount (SoGetPrimitiveCountAction *action)

## Static Public Member Functions

void | initClass (void)

## Public Attributes

SoMFString | string
SoSFFloat | spacing
SoSFEnum | justification

## Protected Member Functions

virtual | ~SoText2 ()
virtual void | generatePrimitives (SoAction *action)
virtual void | computeBBox (SoAction *action, SbBox3f &box, SbVec3f &center)

## Friends

class | SoText2P

## Member Enumeration Documentation

enum SoText2::Justification

| Enum contains the various options for how the horizontal text layout text should be done. Valid values are LEFT, RIGHT and CENTER.

## Constructor & Destructor Documentation

SoText2::SoText2 | ( | void |  | ) |

| Constructor.

SoText2::~SoText2 | ( |  | ) | `[protected, virtual]`

| Destructor.

## Member Function Documentation

void SoText2::initClass | ( | void |  | ) | `[static]`

| Sets up initialization for data common to all instances of this class, like submitting necessary information to the Coin type system. Reimplemented from SoShape.

void SoText2::GLRender | ( | SoGLRenderAction * | action | ) | `[virtual]`

| Action method for the SoGLRenderAction. This is called during rendering traversals. Nodes influencing the rendering state in any way or who wants to throw geometry primitives at OpenGL overrides this method. Reimplemented from SoShape.

void SoText2::rayPick | ( | SoRayPickAction * | action | ) | `[virtual]`

| Calculates picked point based on primitives generated by subclasses. Reimplemented from SoShape.

void SoText2::getPrimitiveCount | ( | SoGetPrimitiveCountAction * | action | ) | `[virtual]`

| Action method for the SoGetPrimitiveCountAction. Calculates the number of triangle, line segment and point primitives for the node and adds these to the counters of the action. Nodes influencing how geometry nodes calculates their primitive count also overrides this method to change the relevant state variables. Reimplemented from SoShape.

void SoText2::generatePrimitives | ( | SoAction * | action | ) | `[protected, virtual]`

The method implements action behavior for shape nodes for SoCallbackAction. It is invoked from SoShape::callback(). (Subclasses should not override SoNode::callback().)

The subclass implementations uses the convenience methods SoShape::beginShape(), SoShape::shapeVertex(), and SoShape::endShape(), with SoDetail instances, to pass the primitives making up the shape back to the caller.

Implements SoShape.

void SoText2::computeBBox | ( | SoAction * | action,
|  | SbBox3f & | box,
|  | SbVec3f & | center
| ) | `[protected, virtual]`

Implemented by SoShape subclasses to let the SoShape superclass know the exact size and weighted center point of the shape's bounding box.

The bounding box and center point should be calculated and returned in the local coordinate system.

The method implements action behavior for shape nodes for SoGetBoundingBoxAction. It is invoked from SoShape::getBoundingBox(). (Subclasses should not override SoNode::getBoundingBox().)

The box parameter sent in is guaranteed to be an empty box, while center is undefined upon function entry.

Implements SoShape.

## Member Data Documentation

SoMFString SoText2::string

| The set of strings to render. Each string in the multiple value field will be rendered on it's own line. The default value of the field is a single empty string.

SoSFFloat SoText2::spacing

| Spacing between each consecutive vertical line. Default value is 1.0, which means that the space between the uppermost line of each rendered string will equal the vertical size of the highest character in the bitmap alphabet.

SoSFEnum SoText2::justification

| Decides how the horizontal layout of the text strings is done.

The documentation for this class was generated from the following files:

- SoText2.h
- SoText2.cpp