Add and remove THREE.Points from scene in three.r84 - javascript

I recently switched from three.js revision 71 to revision 84.
When using the THREE.PointCloud it was very easy to update (adding and removing) points from the scene like this:
function updatePoints(newData) {
geometry.dispose();
geometry.vertices = [];
geometry.vertices.push(...);
scene.add(newPoints);
render();
}
Now in revision 84 THREE.PointCloud is replaced by THREE.Points and this pattern doesn't work anymore and I'm clueless why this is.
My actual code works perfectly fine in r71 but in r84 only some points get removed. The raycaster does not work on the points that should be removed neither can they be animated but they do not disappear from the scene.
I tried multiple things by adding scene.remove(oldPoints);and geometry.verticesNeedUpdate = true;to the function as well as adding different setTimeout before rendering and adding the points to the scene. None of this worked.
Any help would be highly appreciated.
Thank you,
k

Since you already need to recreate the vertices, it's not that much more work to recreate the whole cloud:
geometry.dispose();
geometry = new THREE.Geometry();
geometry.vertices.push(...);
scene.remove(pointCloud);
pointCloud = new THREE.Points(geometry, material);
scene.add(pointCloud);
https://codepen.io/Sphinxxxx/pen/zwqvmP

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I would like to build a parallax effect from a 2D image using a depth map, similar to this, or this but using three.js.
Question is, where should I start with? Using just a PlaneGeometry with a MeshStandardMaterial renders my 2D image without parallax occlusion. Once I add my depth map as displacementMap property I can see some sort of displacement, but it is very low-res. (Maybe, since displacement maps are not meant to be used for this?)
My first attempt
import * as THREE from "three";
import image from "./Resources/Images/image.jpg";
import depth from "./Resources/Images/depth.jpg";
[...]
const geometry = new THREE.PlaneGeometry(200, 200, 10, 10);
const material = new THREE.MeshStandardMaterial();
const spriteMap = new THREE.TextureLoader().load(image);
const depthMap = new THREE.TextureLoader().load(depth);
material.map = spriteMap;
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Or should I use a Sprite object, which face always points to the camera? But how to apply the depth map to it then?
I've set up a codesandbox with what I've got so far. It also contains event listener for mouse movement and rotates the camera on movement as it is work in progress.
Update 1
So I figured out, that I seem to need a custom ShaderMaterial for this. After looking at pixijs's implementation I've found out, that it is based on a custom shader.
Since I have access to the source, all I need to do is rewrite it to be compatible with threejs. But the big question is: HOW
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Introduction:
I render an isometric map with Three.JS (v95, WebGL Renderer). The map includes many different graphic tilesets. I get the specific tile via a TextureAtlasLoader and it’s position from a JSON. It looks like this:
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Current extract from the code to create the tiles (it’s in a loop):
var ts_tile = Map.Imagesets[ims].Map.getTexture((bg_left / tw), (bg_top / th));
var material = new THREE.SpriteMaterial({ map: ts_tile, color: 0xffffff, fog: false });
var sprite = new THREE.Sprite(material);
sprite.position.set(pos_left, -top, 0);
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scene.add(sprite)
I also tried to render it as a Mesh, which also works, but the performance is the same (of course):
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possible solutions in the web:
I know that I can’t add so many sprites or meshes to a scene and I have tried different things and looked at examples, where it works flawless, but I can’t adapt their approaches to my code. Every tile on my map has a different texture and has it’s own position.
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Another approach can be found here on github: https://github.com/YaleDHLab/pix-plot
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Final question:
My question is, how can I render my map more performant? I’m simply overchallenged by changing my code into one of the possible solutions.
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Here is a jsfiddle that works perfect with r69.
Here is the same jsfiddle except using r71.
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...
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I'm aware of the new renderDepth, but that solution seems to be unrelated and doesn't explain why it would break previous behaviour. We don't need to continually update renderDepths manually for all camera angles now do we?
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var shaderMaterial = new THREE.ShaderMaterial({
...
depthTest: true
});
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Have you tried doing it? It should work.
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geometry.verticesNeedUpdate()
geometry.elementsNeedUpdate()
to tell three.js that the vertices and faces, respectively, have changed. There are other update functions you may need to call too (for instance if normals have changed). More details here: https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/wiki/Updates
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Then, i only rotate my objects around themself...
I have already found some examples, but they don't solve my problem. I tried to create objects 3D parents like groups, and tried to make the rotation around this groups after having translated them, but this still does not work...
Can you please give me a hand about that ?
I'm so sorry, i found my problem... Making a jsfiddle made me realize i forgot to instanciate my parent as " a new Object 3D() ", that was why i didn't see any objects in my scene when i used animation on my parent... i give you a short part of my code anyway dedicated to interested people finding any help :
// mesh
mesh = new THREE.Mesh( geometry, material );
parent = new THREE.Object3D();
parent.add(mesh);
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mesh.position.set(-300, 0, 0);
scene.add(parent);
http://jsfiddle.net/KqTg8/6/
Thank you

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