Access geometry from custom VEX function

[MrScienceOfficer]

Hi, 

Does anyone the how I to access the input geometry from a custom VEX function.  I know I can use the path of the node as an argument and get the input geometry, but is there anyway to create a VEX function that can access the current geometry?

For example, I have a pointwrangle node and I create an attribute, then I call my custom VEX function, how can I get access to that geometry?  Or would that have to be handled by something like a VEX_GeoCommand and it's only possible to access the input geo from the HDK?

 

Thanks,

Tom

Edited September 9, 2016 by MrScienceOfficer

[symek]

I doubt it's possible. What kind of problem you're trying to solve this way?

 If you need something very specialized, you could create a custom SOP with CVEX engine inside, reverting - so to speak - the problem. Now you own the geometry, and you send to VEX whatever you want, but this is completely different setup. 

[MrScienceOfficer]

For now, I have an point array attribute that represents the connectivity a hierarchy, so I want to be able to traverse the hierarchy.  Without recursion thats a huge pain in the butt.  Using a primitive array instead and detail array for a map might help a bit, but I'm not sure if it really solves the recursion issue.  

I've been debating using CVEX, basically what I'm doing is developing a SOP based bone system.  More specifically, my intention is develop a way to build a control rig using a GU_Detail that gets evaluated in VEX, this way I can solve the rig programmatically.

My issue was using CVEX didn't solve my problem of accessing geometry in a custom VEX function, but what your saying make sense, it doesn't really matter anymore, I can do whatever I need to in C++ first then send it to VEX. 

My only question now is would that potentially be inefficient?  Meaning to say, would a wrangle node be more significantly more efficient due my ignorance/inability to implement my custom CVEX engine the same way?

[MrScienceOfficer]

Thinking this through a bit more, I could probably make this quite efficient as a specialized rig evaluating engine.  I'm sure the hard part will be the writing the "pre-compiler" to replicate how the wrangle set up works, cuz what fun would it be otherwise.

 

For now I'm gonna hack it, faking recursion over a hierarchy isn't that hard. 

 

Thanks!