NodeID Contributing to Bounding Box But Not Visible in Viewer – How to Investigate?

HOOPS Communicator
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1

Hi Team,

In Hoops Communicator, I’m encountering an issue where the overall model bounding box is unexpectedly large.

After investigation, I found a specific nodeId that is contributing to this large bounding box, but the node is:

  • Technically visible (not hidden or excluded).
  • Still not actually seen in the 3D viewer — even after zoom-to-fit or manually fitting to the node.

Here’s what I’ve tried:

  • Used model.getModelBounding() with various parameter combinations.
  • Confirmed the node is not excluded or set invisible.
  • Retrieved the bounding box of the node via model.getNodeBounding(nodeId) — it’s positioned far from the main model geometry.

Questions:

  1. What could cause a node to be “visible” but not actually render in the viewer?
  2. Could this be due to:
  • Geometry having extreme coordinates or zero scale?
  • Empty geometry or placeholder meshes?
  • Incorrect transformation matrix?
  1. How can I inspect the node’s content (geometry, transform, metadata) to determine why it’s not rendering?

Any tips or tools in the Communicator API to debug such nodes would be very helpful.

2

The node in question may be facing away from the camera and thus getting culled. As a quick test, you can call View.setBackfacesVisible(true).

3

i just added .view.setBackfacesVisible(true); on model structure ready not luck. still could not see the node

4

You mentioned that you were able to retrieve the bounding box of the node in question:

  • Retrieved the bounding box of the node via model.getNodeBounding(nodeId) — it’s positioned far from the main model geometry.

How does bounding box look like? Is it three-dimensional or more 2D?

Perhaps we can retrieve more information on the MeshData object. In the dev console, paste the following:

hwv.setCallbacks({
  selectionArray: async function (selections) {
    if (selections.length > 0) {
      for (const selectionEvent of selections) {
        const selection = selectionEvent.getSelection();
        const nodeid = selection.getNodeId();

        console.log("Selected Node: " + nodeid);
        const md = await hwv.model.getNodeMeshData(nodeid);

        console.log("MeshData: " + JSON.stringify(md));
      }
    }
  },
});

Either select the node via the browser or you can call:
hwv.selectionManager.selectNode(your_nodeid);

5

Screen Recording 2025-05-21 at 11.07.35 PM
yes it is selectable and far away. how do we handle or exclude such nodes?

6

If you have the original CAD source file, it might be worth confirming if this same geometry is there as well. This will confirm that it isn’t a Communicator issue necessarily.

At any rate, you can apply the InstanceModifier enum called ExcludeBounding to remove it from bounding calculations.