Crate nsi

source ·
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Nodal Scene Interface – ɴsɪ

A flexible, modern API for offline 3D renderers

Nsɪ is built around the concept of nodes. Each node has a unique handle to identify it. It also has a type which describes its intended function in the scene.

Nodes are abstract containers for data. The interpretation depends on the node type. Nodes can also be connected to each other to express relationships.

Data is stored on nodes as attributes. Each attribute has a name which is unique on the node and a type which describes the kind of data it holds (strings, integer numbers, floating point numbers, etc).

Relationships and data flow between nodes are represented as connections. Connections have a source and a destination. Both can be either a node or a specific attribute of a node. There are no type restrictions for connections in the interface itself. It is acceptable to connect attributes of different types or even attributes to nodes. The validity of such connections depends on the types of the nodes involved.

What we refer to as the ɴsɪ has two major components:

  1. Methods to create nodes, attributes and their connections. These are attached to a rendering Context.

  2. Nodes understood by the renderer.

Much of the complexity and expressiveness of the interface comes from the supported nodes.

The first part was kept deliberately simple to make it easy to support multiple ways of creating nodes.

Examples

// Create a context to send the scene to.
let ctx = nsi::Context::new(None).expect("Could not create NSI context.");

// Create a dodecahedron.

// 12 regular pentagon faces.
let face_index: [i32; 60] = [
    0, 16, 2, 10, 8, 0, 8, 4, 14, 12, 16, 17, 1, 12, 0, 1, 9, 11, 3, 17, 1,
    12, 14, 5, 9, 2, 13, 15, 6, 10, 13, 3, 17, 16, 2, 3, 11, 7, 15, 13, 4,
    8, 10, 6, 18, 14, 5, 19, 18, 4, 5, 19, 7, 11, 9, 15, 7, 19, 18, 6,
];

// Golden ratio.
let phi: f32 = 0.5 * (1.0 + 5_f32.sqrt());

// Golden ratio conjugate.
let phi_c: f32 = phi - 1.0;

// 20 points @ 3 vertices.
let positions: [f32; 60] = [
    1., 1., 1., 1., 1., -1., 1., -1., 1., 1., -1., -1., -1., 1., 1., -1.,
    1., -1., -1., -1., 1., -1., -1., -1., 0., phi_c, phi, 0., phi_c, -phi,
    0., -phi_c, phi, 0., -phi_c, -phi, phi_c, phi, 0., phi_c, -phi, 0.,
    -phi_c, phi, 0., -phi_c, -phi, 0., phi, 0., phi_c, phi, 0., -phi_c,
    -phi, 0., phi_c, -phi, 0., -phi_c,
];

// Create a new mesh node and call it 'dodecahedron'.
ctx.create("dodecahedron", nsi::MESH, None);

// Connect the 'dodecahedron' node to the scene's root.
ctx.connect("dodecahedron", None, nsi::ROOT, "objects", None);

// Define the geometry of the 'dodecahedron' node.
ctx.set_attribute(
    "dodecahedron",
    &[
        nsi::points!("P", &positions),
        nsi::integers!("P.indices", &face_index),
        // 5 vertices per each face.
        nsi::integers!("nvertices", &[5; 12]),
        // Render this as a subdivison surface.
        nsi::string!("subdivision.scheme", "catmull-clark"),
        // Crease each of our 30 edges a bit.
        nsi::integers!("subdivision.creasevertices", &face_index),
        nsi::floats!("subdivision.creasesharpness", &[10.; 30]),
    ],
);

More Examples

These can be found in the examples folder.

All the examples in this crate require a (free) 3Delight installation to run!

Interactive

Demonstrates using the FnStatus callback closure during rendering and a channel for communicating between main- and rendering thread(s).

Jupyter

Render directly into a Jupyter notebook.

Follow these instructions to get a Rust Jupyter kernel up and running first.

Output

This is a full output example showing color conversion and writing data out to 8bit/channel PNG and 32bit/channel (float) OpenEXR formats.

Volume

Demonstrates rendering an OpenVDB asset. Mostly through the toolbelt helpers.

Getting Pixels

The crate has support for streaming pixels from the renderer, via callbacks (i.e. closures) during and/or after rendering via the output module. This module is enabled through the feature of the same name (see below).

It should be straightforward to create an async implementation with this or use channels to stream pixels back to a main thread (see the interactive example).

Cargo Features

  • output – Add support for streaming pixels from the renderer to the calling context via closures.

  • jupyter – Add support for rendering to Jupyter notebooks (when using a Rust Jupyter kernel).

  • toolbelt – Add convenience methods that work with a Context.

  • delight – Add some nodes & shaders specifi to 3Delight.

  • nightly – Enable some unstable features (suggested if you build with a nightly toolchain)

  • ustr_handles – use ustr for node handles. This will give a you a speed boost if your node names aren’t changing while an app using ɴsɪ is running but is not advised otherwise (ustr are never freed).

Linking Style

The 3Delight dynamic library (lib3delight) can either be linked to during build or loaded at runtime.

By default the lib is loaded at runtime.

  • Load lib3deligh at runtime (default). This has several advantages:

    1. If you ship your application or library you can ship it without the library. It can still run and will print an informative error if the library cannot be loaded.

    2. A user can install an updated version of the renderer and stuff will ‘just work’.

  • Dynamically link against lib3delight.

    • lib3delight becomes a dependency. If it cannot be found your lib/app will not load/start.

    • The feature is called link_lib3delight.

    • You should disable default features (they are not needed/used) in this case:

      [dependencies]
      nsi = { version = "0.7", default-features = false, features = ["link_lib3delight"] }
      
  • Download lib3delight during build.

    • lib3delight is downloaded during build. Note that this may be an outdated version. This feature mainly exists for CI purposes.

    • The feature is called download_lib3delight.

Modules

  • Optional arguments passed to methods of an ɴsɪ context.
  • An ɴsɪ context.
  • Helpers for using ɴsɪ with 3Delight.
  • Jupyter Notebook support.
  • Standard ɴsɪ node types.
  • outputoutput
    Output driver callbacks.
  • Convenience methods for an ɴsɪ context.

Macros

Structs

Enums

  • The render action to perform when calling render_control().
  • A variant describing data passed to the renderer.
  • An error type the callbacks return to communicate with the renderer.
  • The depth (number and type of channels) a pixel in a Layer is composed of.
  • The status of a interactive render session.

Constants

Statics

  • This is the name of the crate’s built-in output driver that understands the “closure.*” attributes.

Traits

  • A closure which is called to inform about the errors during scene defintion or a render.
  • A closure which is called once per OutputDriver instance.
  • A closure which is called once per OutputDriver instance.
  • A closure which is called to inform about the status of an ongoing render.
  • A closure which is called for each bucket of pixels the OutputDriver instance sends during rendering.

Type Aliases