201 – Converting Data Types & Instancing

Moving Between Families and Understanding Instances

Summary

While we often work with data using a single family of operators in TouchDesigner, there are times when it becomes important to convert data from one operator family to another. You may want to represent the points in your SOP as a texture that you can manipulate on the GPU, or you may need a way to see all of the values in your CHOP channels as a table in DATs. There are lots of reasons we may need to convert between operators, and in this lesson we’ll look at the principles and key considerations to keep in mind when converting data types.


We’ll also look at instancing workflows so you can supercharge your geometry networks. Instancing is used for data visualization, creating point clouds, and rendering many copies of a single piece of geometry efficiently. In TouchDesigner, you can use the data stored in any family of operators to drive your instances, and in these topics we’ll look closely at the behaviors that are both unique to single families and shared across them.

Prerequisites

101 – Navigating the Environment

Difficulty

Intermediate

Viewing Recommendation

Watch, Follow Along

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