BabylonJS mesh data not highlighting with user selection

[emackey]

1. Load an ordinary (non-Draco) glTF model and visit the mesh.primitives block for any visible mesh.
2. Open the Babylon.js 3D model preview (but not the inspector, I think, just the main preview).
3. Press ALT + d in the mesh primitive attributes block to inspect the data.
4. In the left bar, an "Inspect Data" tree appears. Expand the list of vertices, then expand the [0..100] block.
5. Click a particular vertex number, such as 5.

I believe the selected vertex is supposed to be highlighted in BabylonJS, but it is not. On the extension side, the following line posts a message into the webview containing BabylonJS:

https://github.com/AnalyticalGraphicsInc/gltf-vscode/blob/7e07889d105fa8850170ac3c09126e8f43cb5ec9/src/gltfInspectData.ts#L604

This message is successfully delivered into the webview, and babylonDebug.js receives it here:

https://github.com/AnalyticalGraphicsInc/gltf-vscode/blob/7e07889d105fa8850170ac3c09126e8f43cb5ec9/pages/babylonDebug.js#L267

It then looks for the mesh in question:

https://github.com/AnalyticalGraphicsInc/gltf-vscode/blob/7e07889d105fa8850170ac3c09126e8f43cb5ec9/pages/babylonDebug.js#L118-L119

And tries to learn the JSON pointer of each mesh during that search:

https://github.com/AnalyticalGraphicsInc/gltf-vscode/blob/7e07889d105fa8850170ac3c09126e8f43cb5ec9/pages/babylonDebug.js#L105

Unfortunately, Babylon's scene.meshes[i].metadata turns out to be an empty object, so the test for ...metadata.gltf fails, and the selected mesh is never found. So, the selection highlighting does not work.

[emackey]

@bghgary Safe travels home from SIGGRAPH! Let me know if you have thoughts on this, no rush. We're on Babylon 7.17.2 now.

[bghgary]

I am back for a week and then I'll be out again. I'll take a look at the end of the month or early September.

[bghgary]

@emackey I try to investigate, but I am unable to get npm install to succeed. It appears there are commands that don't work on Windows. What platform do you develop on?

C:\GitHub\gltf-vscode>npm install
npm WARN deprecated inflight@1.0.6: This module is not supported, and leaks memory. Do not use it. Check out lru-cache if you want a good and tested way to coalesce async requests by a key value, which is much more comprehensive and powerful.
npm WARN deprecated @humanwhocodes/config-array@0.11.14: Use @eslint/config-array instead
npm WARN deprecated rimraf@3.0.2: Rimraf versions prior to v4 are no longer supported
npm WARN deprecated glob@8.1.0: Glob versions prior to v9 are no longer supported
npm WARN deprecated glob@7.2.3: Glob versions prior to v9 are no longer supported
npm WARN deprecated @humanwhocodes/object-schema@2.0.3: Use @eslint/object-schema instead

> gltf-vscode@2.5.0 postinstall
> cd server && npm install && cd .. && npm run fixThree

> gltf-language-server@2.5.0 preinstall
> touch installServerIntoExtension && rm installServerIntoExtension*

'touch' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
npm ERR! code 1
npm ERR! path C:\GitHub\gltf-vscode\server
npm ERR! command failed
npm ERR! command C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe /d /s /c touch installServerIntoExtension && rm installServerIntoExtension*

[emackey]

@bghgary I'm on Windows for this but I use "Git Bash" as the command line for most of this, which I guess is where touch comes from. Are you able to try again from Git Bash for Windows? At some point I may have to redo all the Language Server stuff in this extension, but it's a big lift.

[bghgary]

Yup, Git Bash works after some trial and error. It appears launching vscode using code . from Git Bash causes it to not be able to find npm 🤷‍♂️. It works fine if I launch from a normal command prompt or with the start menu.

EDIT: this is probably something in my system and is unrelated