Attribute Reader

Read attribute values from points, shapes, or geometry.

What it does

Attribute Reader pulls a single named attribute off any collection, points, shapes or geometry, and exposes it as its own wireable output. Collections carry a bundle of named values: position, colour, normal, scale, an id, a 0–1 progress value and others.

Type the attribute's name into Attribute Name and its values come out as a plain array, accepted anywhere an array is: a Gradient, a colour input, a scale parameter. Standard names are positions, colors, normals, scales, indices, normalized and ids. @-prefixed short names also work.

When to use it

ParameterTypeDefault
geometryOneOf([Collection])
attribute_nameString"positions"

Gotchas

This node only reads. It never writes or creates attributes; to add a new attribute to a collection, use an Expression node.

Attribute Name defaults to positions. Left unchanged, it returns positions rather than the intended attribute.

If the named attribute does not exist on the incoming collection there is nothing to read. Check the spelling first. Standard names are normalised, so Cd, color and colors are treated the same way.

Worked example

  1. Add an Attribute Reader and wire a collection (points, shapes or geometry) into Geometry.

  2. Set Attribute Name to the attribute to read: normalized on an Iterator's output, or colors on painted geometry.

  3. Wire the Values output into whatever parameter it should drive, such as a Gradient or a colour input.

See also

Sample · Lookup · Info · Attributes