Trail POP

Summary

The Trail POP captures and retains all the points of the input for the most recent N frames or N "slices", being a time-history of the input's points. It then optionally creates primitives that connects the points in various ways.

If the number of points of the input is the same for all the slices, then it can easily skin points together using the Connectivity menu, such as maling a line strip for each point over time.

If the number of points is changing per-frame, as it would with a particle system, it can still connect time-related dots by using an Id attribute on the points, and making sure the Id of a particle stays the same through its life. You can select which attribute it co-relates to using the Match by Attribute parameter.

It ignores and does not use the connectivity (primitives) of the input.

If the number of points of the input is the same for all the slices, it adds one new Dimension whose size is the number of slices.

Trail Length can be expressed in Seconds or Frames. Seconds is preferable as it will remain the same if you move the Trail POP to another project with a different frame rate. Trail Increment lets you skip frames - capture a slice every Mth frame.

Reset clears and restarts the trail. Oldest Point First reverses the order of the slices.

The Trail POP deals with frame drops elegantly by (optionally) filling in data for missing frames and creating stand-in slices, and (optionally) tagging each slice with an Age attribute. This can give smoother frame-drop-resistant trail curves.

trailPOP_Class

Parameters - Trail Page

Active active - When enabled, the trail POP will append the input POP to the current trails.

Always Cook alwayscook - Forces the operator to cook every frame.

Trail Length length - ⊞ - Length of trail expressed in time units.

Trail Length length -

Trail Length Unit lengthunit - The time unit.

Trail Increment inc - ⊞ - The spacing between trail points.

Trail Increment inc -

Trail Increment Unit incunit - The time unit.

Reset reset - ⊞ - Resets tail and holds one snapshot.

Reset reset -

Reset Pulse resetpulse - Reset trail.

Age Attribute ageattr - ⊞ - Whether to outpt an Age attribute.

None none -

Seconds seconds -

Frames frames -

Oldest Point First oldestpointfirst - Changes the point order: older points are first instead of last.

Fill Missed Frames fillmissedframes - Enable frame reconstruction for dropped frames using interpolation.

Match by Attribute attrmatch - Connect points sharing the same attribute value.

Attribute Name attrname - Attribute to use when connecting points by attribute.

Attrib is UInt uintmax - ⊞ - When connecting trails by attribute, allows to specify whether the attribute is an unsigned integer and what the max value is. Smaller max UInt require fewer passes for the internal sort.

4 bits UInt (max 16) uint4 -

8 bits UInt (max 256) uint8 -

12 bits UInt (max 4096) uint12 -

16 bits UInt (max 65,536) uint16 -

20 bits UInt (max 1 M) uint20 -

24 bits UInt (max 16 M) uint24 -

28 bits UInt (max 268 M) uint28 -

32 bits UInt (max 4 B) uint32 -

Max Number of Line Strips maxls - Sets the max number of line strips to be allocated. This number should be bigger than the actual number of line strips (visible in info popup) for all the trail line strips to be created.

Connectivity surftype - ⊞ - Determines the primitive used to connect the points.

None none -

Point Primitives points -

Rows rows -

Columns cols -

Rows and Columns rowcol -

Triangles triangles -

Alternating Triangles alttriangles -

Quadrilaterals quads -

Closed closed - The last vertex is connected to the first vertex.

Parameters - Transform Page

Transform Order xord - ⊞ - Sets the overall transform order for the transformations.

Scale Rotate Translate srt -

Scale Translate Rotate str -

Rotate Scale Translate rst -

Rotate Translate Scale rts -

Translate Scale Rotate tsr -

Translate Rotate Scale trs -

Rotate Order rord - ⊞ - Sets the order of the rotations within the overall transform order.

Rx Ry Rz xyz -

Rx Rz Ry xzy -

Ry Rx Rz yxz -

Ry Rz Rx yzx -

Rz Rx Ry zxy -

Rz Ry Rx zyx -

Translate t - ⊞ - Translate the points in the three axes over time.

Translate tx -

Translate ty -

Translate tz -

Rotate r - ⊞ - Rotate the points around the corresponding X, Y and Z axes. Angles are given in degrees.

Rotate rx -

Rotate ry -

Rotate rz -

Scale s - ⊞ - These three fields scale the Source geometry in the three axes.

Scale sx -

Scale sy -

Scale sz -

Pivot p - ⊞ - The pivot point for the transform rotates and scales.

Pivot px -

Pivot py -

Pivot pz -

Parameters - Common Page

Bypass bypass - Pass through the first input to the output unchanged.

Free Extra GPU Memory freeextragpumem - Free memory that has accumulated when output memory has grown and shrunk.

Delete Input Attributes delinputattrs - Only output which attributes you specify in this POP - helps isolate attributes into a separate branch.

Operator Inputs

Input 0: -

Info CHOP Channels

Extra Information for the Trail POP can be accessed via an Info CHOP.

Common POP Info Channels

Common Operator Info Channels

total_cooks - Number of times the operator has cooked since the process started.

cook_time - Duration of the last cook in milliseconds.

cook_frame - Frame number when this operator was last cooked relative to the component timeline.

cook_abs_frame - Frame number when this operator was last cooked relative to the absolute time.

cook_start_time - Time in milliseconds at which the operator started cooking in the frame it was cooked.

cook_end_time - Time in milliseconds at which the operator finished cooking in the frame it was cooked.

cooked_this_frame - 1 if operator was cooked this frame.

warnings - Number of warnings in this operator if any.

errors - Number of errors in this operator if any.

TouchDesigner Build:

Privacy policy

Follow us