threejs-interaction

Use THREE.Raycaster with setFromCamera after converting the mouse position to normalized device coordinates ranging from -1 to 1. Call intersectObjects on your clickable meshes and read the first entry of the returned array for the closest hit.

Import OrbitControls from three/addons/controls/OrbitControls.js and construct it with your camera and renderer.domElement. Enable damping with controls.enableDamping = true and call controls.update() every frame for smooth movement.

Yes, raycasting works with touch events by reading event.touches[0].clientX and clientY and converting them the same way as mouse coordinates. Listen for touchstart on the renderer canvas and call preventDefault to avoid scrolling conflicts.

OrbitControls rotates the camera around a target point and suits model viewers and scene inspection. PointerLockControls hides the cursor for first-person navigation and suits games or walkthroughs where WASD movement is needed.

Raycasting every mousemove against the whole scene is expensive. Throttle handlers to around 20fps, restrict intersection tests to a list of clickable objects, use layers for filtering, and substitute invisible simple collision meshes for complex geometry.