Draw Points

Rasterizes a point cloud into a texture, drawing each point as a circle. Reads per-point attributes for scale, opacity, and color.

Category: Render Menu path: Render > DrawPoints

Ports

Port	Type	Direction	Description
points_in	points	input	Point cloud to rasterize
out	imageRgba16f	output	Rasterized image

Parameters

Param	Type	Default	Description
color	color	white	Base color for all points
pointSize	scalar	4	Base radius in pixels

How It Works

DrawPoints rasterizes each point as a filled circle using a CPU rasterizer. The base pointSize defines the default radius, and the base color defines the default appearance.

Per-point attributes (set upstream by PointAttributes) modify each individual point:

• scale -- multiplies the base pointSize to produce the final radius for that point
• opacity -- multiplies the base alpha (0-1)
• color -- overrides the base color entirely with per-point RGBA

Points missing attributes use backward-compatible defaults (scale 1.0, opacity 1.0, base color).

Usage Examples

Basic: Visualize a grid

Grid -> DrawPoints -> Output. Adjust pointSize to control dot size. Each grid point renders as a white circle.

Field-driven particle sizes

Grid -> PointAttributes (target: Scale, field: Noise.scalarField) -> DrawPoints. Each point's radius varies based on the noise field value at its position, creating an organic dot pattern.

Colored particle system

Grid -> PointAdvect (field: Noise.vectorField) -> PointAttributes (target: Color, field: Gradient.colorField) -> DrawPoints. Points flow through a noise field and pick up colors from a gradient based on their position.

Tips

• Per-point scale is a multiplier on pointSize -- a scale of 2.0 with pointSize 4 gives radius 8
• Unlike DrawShape, DrawPoints uses CPU rasterization (not GPU MSAA). Performance depends on point count and radius.
• The AABB for content bounds is inflated by the point radius, so large pointSize values are accounted for in the viewport

Related Nodes

• DrawShape -- rasterizes shape geometry (polygons, paths) instead of points
• PointAttributes -- sets per-point scale, opacity, color, rotation
• Grid -- generates point clouds
• PointAdvect -- moves points through a vector field over time