I have a 3d world with SceneKit, works great, can pan, zoom in/out but I want to create a mini-view of the 3d world on top of the larger 3d world. So if the user zooms in to a very fine resolution they still know where they are in space.
Most examples seem to overlay a different VC like SpriteKit on top of a SceneKit VC with something like overlaySKScene . The mini-version doesn't zoom in/out but will pan, change lighting etc but it will not accept gestures. This is more like recursion of how to put an mini-version of self on top of self.
Here is how I did it:
You can simply add another camera to the scene, and render to a SCNLayer. Then, you can either use this layer within the scene as a material, or add it as a custom view on top of your scene.
SCNScene *scene2 =[SCNScene scene];
// We duplicate the scene by cloning the root node.
// I found that you cannot share the scene if you
// use the layer within it.
[[scene2 rootNode] addChildNode:[root clone]];
// Create a SCNLayer, set the scene and size
SCNLayer *scnlayer = [SCNLayer layer];
scnlayer.scene = scene2;
scnlayer.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, 600, 800);
// "Layer" should be the name of your second camera
scnlayer.pointOfView = [scene.rootNode childNodeWithName:@"Layer" recursively:YES];
// Make sure it gets updated
scnlayer.playing = YES;
// Make a parent layer with a black background
CALayer *backgroundLayer = [CALayer layer];
backgroundLayer.backgroundColor = CGColorGetConstantColor(kCGColorBlack);
backgroundLayer.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, 600, 800);
// Add the SCNLayer
[backgroundLayer addSublayer:scnlayer];
// Set the layer as the emissive material of an object
SCNMaterial *material = plane.geometry.firstMaterial;
material.emission.contents = scnlayer;
I'm pretty sure this is not a great way to do it, but it worked for me.