Module vulkano::descriptor::descriptor

Description of a single descriptor.

This module contains traits and structs related to describing a single descriptor. A descriptor is a slot where you can bind a buffer or an image so that it can be accessed from your shaders. In order to specify which buffer or image to bind to a descriptor, see the descriptor_set module.

There are four different kinds of descriptors that give access to buffers:

• Uniform texel buffers. Gives read-only access to the content of a buffer. Only supports certain buffer formats.
• Storage texel buffers. Gives read and/or write access to the content of a buffer. Only supports certain buffer formats. Less restrictive but sometimes slower than uniform texel buffers.
• Uniform buffers. Gives read-only access to the content of a buffer. Less restrictive but sometimes slower than uniform texel buffers.
• Storage buffers. Gives read and/or write access to the content of a buffer. Less restrictive but sometimes slower than uniform buffers and storage texel buffers.

There are five different kinds of descriptors related to images:

• Storage images. Gives read and/or write access to individual pixels in an image. The image cannot be sampled. In other words, you have exactly specify which pixel to read or write.
• Sampled images. Gives read-only access to an image. Before you can use a sampled image in a a shader, you have to combine it with a sampler (see below). The sampler describes how reading the image will behave.
• Samplers. Doesn’t contain an image but a sampler object that describes how an image will be accessed. This is meant to be combined with a sampled image (see above).
• Combined image and sampler. Similar to a sampled image, but also directly includes the sampler which indicates how the sampling is done.
• Input attachments. The fastest but also most restrictive access to images. Must be integrated in a render pass. Can only give access to the same pixel as the one you’re processing.

Structs

DescriptorBufferDesc	Additional description for descriptors that contain buffers.
DescriptorDesc	Contains the exact description of a single descriptor.
DescriptorImageDesc	Additional description for descriptors that contain images.
ShaderStages	Describes which shader stages have access to a descriptor.

Enums

DescriptorDescSupersetError	Error when checking whether a descriptor is a superset of another one.
DescriptorDescTy	Describes the content and layout of each array element of a descriptor.
DescriptorImageDescArray
DescriptorImageDescDimensions
DescriptorType	Describes what kind of resource may later be bound to a descriptor.
ShaderStagesSupersetError	Error when checking whether some shader stages are superset of others.