PictureCube

Create a 3D interactive cube with an image on all 6 sides. For a full explanation of the creation of this file and a full demo of all of the functionality see http://tjvantoll.com/2012/02/27/Making-a-3D-Picture-Cube-with-CSS3/. All browsers that support CSS 3D transforms are supported.

Usage

Include the CSS and JS files.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="/PictureCube.css" />
<script src="/PictureCube.js"></script>

Call the constructor anytime after the appropriate DOM node that will contain the cube has been created.

• node String: The DOM node or the id of the DOM node to turn into the PictureCube.
• images Array: An array of Objects. Each Object should have src and id attributes which will applied to the <img /> tags created.
• options Object: An optional set of options to configure the cube. Right now only an onchange event is available.

Example:

<div id="cube"></div>

<script>
    var cube = new PictureCube('cube',
        [
            { src: '1.jpg', title: 'Picture 1' },
            { src: '2.jpg', title: 'Picture 2' },
            { src: '3.jpg', title: 'Picture 3' },
            { src: '4.jpg', title: 'Picture 4' },
            { src: '5.jpg', title: 'Picture 5' },
            { src: '6.jpg', title: 'Picture 6' }
        ],
        {
            onchange: function(number, image, cube) {
                console.log('Side # ' + number + ' is now showing');
            }
        }
    );
</script>

Since PictureCube depends on CSS 3D transforms, you can use Modernizr to detect support...

if (Modernizr.csstransforms3d) {
    new PictureCube('', []);
}

...but there's really no harm in calling PictureCube blindly. Browsers that don't support 3D transforms will just get a box with the first image in the array passed in.

Methods

goto - Go to a particular side of the cube using a 3D transformation.

/**
 * @param side {number} The number of the side to change the cube to (1 - 6).
 */
cube.goto(2);

cycle - Create an interval to cycle through the sides of the cube.

/**
 * @param interval {number} The number of milliseconds between each image transition
 */
 cube.cycle(2000);

clearCycle - Clear the interval created by cycle.

cube.clearCycle();

Events

onchange

If you pass an onchange function to the constructor it will be invoked everytime the side of the cube displaying changes. The function will be passed the following parameters.

• number Number: The side number displaying (1 - 6).
• image DOMNode: The <img /> tag currently displaying.
• cube PictureCube: A reference to the PictureCube instance.

Extendable

The following technique can be used to extend PictureCube. This example creates an AwesomeCube that inherits the base methods from PictureCube's prototype.

AwesomeCube = function(node, images) {
    PictureCube.apply(this, [node, images]);
};
AwesomeCube.prototype = new PictureCube();
AwesomeCube.prototype.newMethod = function() {
    //this.cube, this.images, this.goto, this.cycle
    //and this.clearCycle are available to the new
    //function.
};

Limitations

Currently the cube will be 100px x 100px and will resize the images provided to be the same size. Look for the size to be configurable in a future update.