Geometries

The complete, exact list, read from glyphviz_core/geometry_data.py — the single source shared by the GL renderer (glyphviz_gl/geometry.py) and the Properties Panel's Geometry dropdown, which builds itself from GEO_NAMES.

What geometry controls

Geometry is the shape assigned to an individual node — independent of topology, which governs how a parent arranges its children in space. A node's geometry answers "what does this one point in the hierarchy look like," while topology answers "how are this node's children laid out."

The full list

IDs 0–22 are commented in source as matching ANTz's kNPgeo* enum (geometry_data.py:9); IDs 23 and up are GlyphViz-only extensions with no ANTz/GaiaViz equivalent.

ID	Name (GEO_NAMES)	Constant	Notes
0	Cube Wire	GEO_CUBE_WIRE	Wireframe; solid pair is GEO_CUBE
1	Cube	GEO_CUBE
2	Sphere Wire	GEO_SPHERE_WIRE	Wireframe; solid pair is GEO_SPHERE
3	Sphere	GEO_SPHERE
4	Cone Wire	GEO_CONE_WIRE	Wireframe; solid pair is GEO_CONE
5	Cone	GEO_CONE
6	Torus Wire	GEO_TORUS_WIRE	Wireframe; solid pair is GEO_TORUS
7	Torus	GEO_TORUS	Shape driven by the node's ratio field (minor radius as a fraction of overall radius, default TORUS_DEFAULT_RATIO = 0.14)
8	Dodecahedron Wire	GEO_DODECA_WIRE	Wireframe; solid pair is GEO_DODECA
9	Dodecahedron	GEO_DODECA
10	Octahedron Wire	GEO_OCTA_WIRE	Wireframe; solid pair is GEO_OCTA
11	Octahedron	GEO_OCTA	Default geometry for newly-created nodes (main_window.py:1113)
12	Tetrahedron Wire	GEO_TETRA_WIRE	Wireframe; solid pair is GEO_TETRA
13	Tetrahedron	GEO_TETRA
14	Icosahedron Wire	GEO_ICOSA_WIRE	Wireframe; solid pair is GEO_ICOSA
15	Icosahedron	GEO_ICOSA
16	Pin	GEO_PIN	ANTz's "ice-cream cone": a 10:1 cone standing on its apex at the node's own origin, shaft rising along +Z, domed at the top. Unlike the other glyphs it is not centred on its origin — that placement is what lets Pin-topology children ride the shaft (see Topologies)
17	Pin Wire	GEO_PIN_WIRE	Wireframe pair — note the reversed solid/wire ID order vs. every other pair above
18	Cylinder Wire	GEO_CYLINDER_WIRE	Wireframe; solid pair is GEO_CYLINDER
19	Cylinder	GEO_CYLINDER
20	Grid Wire	GEO_GRID_WIRE	Wireframe; solid pair is GEO_GRID
21	Grid	GEO_GRID	Flat square in the local XY plane, normal along +Z — matches ANTz's Grid node (topo=Plane, geometry=Square)
22	Point	GEO_POINT	Fixed-pixel-size GL_POINTS sprite; size driven by the node's ratio field
23	Mesh (Imported)	GEO_MESH	GlyphViz extension — arbitrary triangle mesh imported via glyphviz_core/mesh_loader.py (OBJ/STL/PLY/glTF), selected per-node by Node.mesh_id rather than a fixed shape. Each imported mesh gets its own entry in the geometry dropdowns ("Mesh 1: name", "Mesh 2: name", …); picking one sets both geometry and mesh_id. Textured when the file carries UVs; sharp edges come from a 40° crease angle. See Imported Meshes
24	Circle	GEO_CIRCLE	GlyphViz extension — flat 2-D marker, world-space plate (like Grid), compiled to display lists for scatter-plot-scale performance
25	Cross	GEO_CROSS	GlyphViz extension — same idea as Circle
26	Star	GEO_STAR	GlyphViz extension — same idea as Circle
27	Line	GEO_LINE	GlyphViz extension, Link nodes only — the classic thin connector, and a Link's default. Width is ratio × 20 px
28	Prism (Textured)	GEO_LINE_PRISM	GlyphViz extension, Link nodes only — a textured 4-sided tube between the two ends, scrollable via rotate_rate_z to show directed flow. ratio is its world-space half-width
29	Cube (Interior)	GEO_CUBE_INTERIOR	GlyphViz extension — see Interior geometries below
30	Sphere (Interior)	GEO_SPHERE_INTERIOR	GlyphViz extension — a 360° / equirectangular image or video sphere
31	Cylinder (Interior)	GEO_CYLINDER_INTERIOR	GlyphViz extension — closed at both ends
32	Cylinder (Interior, Open)	GEO_CYLINDER_INTERIOR_OPEN	GlyphViz extension — an open tube; the same shape as 31 without its end caps
33	Flat Ring	GEO_RING	GlyphViz extension — a torus with a rectangular cross-section. ratio is the band's radial width, scale_z its height — see The Flat Ring below
34	Flat Ring Wire	GEO_RING_WIRE	Wireframe pair for 33

GEO_COUNT = 35 (geometry_data.py).

Interior geometries (seen from within)

Ids 29–32 are the three shapes that enclose a volume, turned outside in: each draws its inside surface, so you can fly the camera into it and see the texture — a 360° video sphere, a cylindrical panorama, a video room. Set one the way you set any other shape: the Geometry dropdown, the O key, the geometry column of the CSV, or a Channels track.

An interior shape is not "back-face culling turned off", and the difference is visible. Looking at the inside of an ordinary outward-mapped surface is inherently a mirror view — a video would play backwards, text and faces reversed. These shapes are built mirrored so that the image reads forwards from within. They also stay single-sided: one fragment per pixel, and alpha blending on a translucent node behaves exactly as it does everywhere else.

Practical notes:

• From outside you see the far inner wall, like looking into a bowl — the near surface is culled away. The node stays visible in the scene and stays clickable; it just reads as a hollow shell until you go in.
• They draw unlit, so the image comes through at full brightness with no shading over it — exactly what the World Grid's globe does with a map, and what you want from a video. The node's own colour still tints an untextured interior shape; it simply isn't shaded.
• End caps are a property of the interior cylinder, and the two states are the two ids above. The Properties panel shows an End caps checkbox whenever a node is on one of them, and ticking it swaps the id — there is no separate field, so the choice travels with the CSV like any other geometry. Off gives an open tube (a panorama you look along, or a link you fly through); on closes both ends and maps the texture over them too.
• The interior cube's six faces each carry the whole texture, upright and unmirrored for a viewer at the centre facing +Y. It is built face by face rather than by reflecting the ordinary cube, because a single reflection would leave the two faces perpendicular to the mirror axis reading backwards.
• Scale works as usual, so an interior sphere at scale 57.3 with Global Scale 1.0 has a radius of 57.3 world units — fly inside and look around.
• These are ordinary geometries, so a Link carrying one renders it stretched between the two ends: an interior open cylinder on a link is a tube you can fly down.

The Flat Ring

Ids 33 and 34 are a torus whose cross-section is a rectangle instead of a circle — a machined band rather than soft tubing. Four real faces, each with a constant normal and a crisp edge, which is what makes it read as an instrument and what lets a texture lie flat and legible on it: degree markings, a zodiac strip, a ruler scale, a label wrapped once around a hoop. The Armillary World example is built out of them.

It introduces no new column. Both of its proportions come from fields a torus already uses, which is why a Torus ↔ Flat Ring swap is a pure change of look — same silhouette, same extents, and a TOPO_TORUS parent places its children identically whichever of the two it wears:

Field	Meaning on a Flat Ring
ratio	The band's radial width, exactly as on a torus (whose tube spans radius 1 − 2 × ratio to 1). Default 0.14
scale_z	The band's height. Again as on a torus — it now stretches a rectangle instead of an ellipse

Because a torus's cross-section is already square, scale_z = scale_x gives a ring with a square section. The two forms a ring instrument is actually built from are the two ways to leave that square:

• A wide, thin washer — large ratio, small scale_z. A graduated dial read face-on.
• A tall, thin hoop — small ratio, large scale_z. A meridian band whose broad face points outward.

Note that the local half-height is ratio, so a thin band needs a large scale_z to be tall: a hoop 0.5 units tall at ratio = 0.02 wants scale_z = 25. Working from an instrument maker's numbers, for a ring of radius R with radial width w and thickness t: ratio = w / 2R and scale_z = t × R / w.

A ratio at or past 0.5 closes the hole and the ring becomes a solid wheel, rather than inverting.

Two authoring rules for rings

Both were learned building the Armillary World, and both are design constraints rather than settings:

• A ring that carries children should be scaled uniformly. Children inherit a parent's per-axis scale, so a child of a (S, S, Z) ring comes out stretched. Split the job: thin rails at uniform scale carry the children, and wide, thin, textured bands carry the markings and stay childless.
• A ring's texture must be built at the ring's own aspect ratio. u runs once around the whole circumference while v crosses the narrow reading face, so the canvas is enormously wide — 2πR / face width. A band 20% of its radius gives 31:1, 10% gives 63:1, and a thin 4% hoop is 157:1. An image at the wrong aspect smears every letter sideways, and "repeat the content more times" starves each copy of pixels. The consequence: a ring carrying readable text has to be a wide band, on the order of 10–20% of its own radius — which is exactly what a real armillary's zodiac ring is. Whether the reading face is the band's radial width or its thickness depends on which way you look at the ring.

Geometry on a Link node

A Link (type=7) is an edge between two other nodes — its parent_id is the A-end and its child_id the B-end — and its geometry picks how that edge is drawn. All of the following are selected by the geometry field alone, with no extra column, so a link's look travels with the CSV:

• 27 Line and 28 Prism (Textured) are the two line modes above.
• 22 Point also draws as a plain line: a fixed-pixel sprite has no extent to stretch along an axis, so there is no glyph reading of it.
• Every other ID renders that glyph stretched between the link's two ends. This is ANTz's own link behavior, and it is what lets an edge become a cylinder rod, a tapering cone (whose apex points at the B-end — a natural arrowhead for directed graphs), a wireframe cage, an imported mesh, or an arbitrarily distorted version of any other shape.

Three rules govern a glyph link's transform:

Property	How it is set
Length	The distance between the two endpoints. The glyph's own local Z extent is mapped onto the A→B segment, so it starts on A and ends on B exactly — including Pin, whose apex sits at its local origin rather than being centred
Thickness	ratio, applied to both cross-axes. One field controls thickness whatever geometry the link carries — the same field the Line and Prism modes already use for their width
Orientation	Derived entirely from the two endpoints. A link has no independent pose, so its own translate, rotate, and scale fields play no part. Roll is gravity-referenced, so a link does not spin about its own axis as it swings around

Press O / Shift+O with a link selected to cycle it through every geometry (Mesh and Point are skipped, as they are for ordinary nodes). A selected glyph link draws the usual yellow selection box; a Line or Prism link does not.

Two things worth knowing:

• On a Torus link, ratio does double duty — it is both the thickness and the torus's own minor-radius proportion. Values above 1.0 make a degenerate torus. The result at sane ratios is a hollow tube running along the edge.
• The flat geometries (Grid, Circle, Cross, Star) have no Z extent to stretch, so they render as a plate at the midpoint of the edge rather than spanning it.

Performance is left to you: a scene with thousands of solid glyph links draws thousands of glyphs. Drop back to Line where the edge is not the point.

Texture support

Setting a node's texture_id maps the image onto the solid geometries: Cube, Sphere, Cone, Cylinder, Torus, Flat Ring, Grid, Pin, the four Platonic solids, the four interior shapes, and the flat markers Circle, Cross, and Star. Two geometries take no texture — the 12 wireframe variants (there is no surface to map onto), and Point, whose fixed-pixel GL_POINTS sprite has no geometry to carry coordinates. In both cases the node simply renders in its solid color; nothing errors.

On a Flat Ring, each of the four faces carries a full copy of the image, oriented to read forwards from that face's own natural viewing side — see the aspect-ratio rule above, which is the thing that most often goes wrong.

The flat markers crop the image to their silhouette rather than stretching it to fit, using the same image window the Grid uses across its square. A Circle shows a circular crop of the picture, a Star a star-shaped one, and a Cross the picture's central vertical and horizontal strips. Being flat, they show their texture face-on and disappear to an edge when viewed side-on.

Picking behavior

The 12 wireframe geometries render as outlines, but for click-picking purposes each is mapped to its solid equivalent in a dedicated pick pass (WIRE_TO_SOLID, geometry_data.py:195-208) — so clicking anywhere inside a wireframe shape's silhouette registers a hit, not just clicks landing precisely on a visible wire.

Next step

See Topologies for how a parent node positions its children, or Properties Panel for where geometry is set in the GUI.