Cylinder
A 3D cylinder mesh.
What it does
Cylinder builds a round column from a radius and a height: a can, a pillar, a bottle body, a wheel. Radius and Height set its size. Segments sets how many flat sides make up the round wall, from a faceted drum up to a smooth-looking cylinder.
Turn Analytical on and the output is a Distance Field shape rather than a tessellated mesh. It stays crisp at any zoom, combines with other analytic shapes in Boolean-style operations, and resolves to actual geometry only when something downstream needs a mesh. Segments is ignored in that mode, since there is no facet count to set.
When to use it
A can, pillar, pipe, wheel, or bottle body
A clean round profile that survives close-up zoom or Distance Field combines with other shapes: turn Analytical on
A mesh for simulation, deformation, or per-vertex work: leave Analytical off and dial Segments for the facet density you need
| Parameter | Type | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
fill | Color or Color Field or Color[] or Field or Material or Material[] or Frame Sequence | — | — |
radius | Number | 50 | Cylinder radius |
height | Number | 100 | Cylinder height |
segments | Number | 32 | Number of radial segments |
analytical | Boolean | false | Emit an analytical Field::Record(geometry_surface) instead of a tessellated mesh. The whole object transform still applies — position, rotation, scale and anchor place the analytical shape through the same transform that places the mesh, so flipping this switch never moves, turns or resizes it. Cross-primitive SDF booleans and lazy-resolution rendering work natively; mesh consumers get the tessellation spliced transparently via the geometry_field_to_collection adapter. |
position | Vec3 | (0, 0, 0) | Translation (X, Y, Z) |
rotation | Vec3 | (0, 0, 0) | Rotation in degrees (X, Y, Z) |
scale | Vec3 | (1, 1, 1) | Scale (X, Y, Z) |
anchor | Vec3 | (0, 0, 0) | Pivot offset (X, Y, Z) — rotation/scale orbit this point |
opacity | Number | 1 | Layer opacity (0 = transparent, 1 = opaque). Editable, wirable, keyframable. |
Gotchas
Cylinder is oriented along its own axis, and is not rotation-invariant the way a sphere is. An internal shape hint that speeds up downstream Distance Field conversion only attaches while Rotation is zero. A rotated cylinder still works, falling back to the slower generic mesh path for that conversion.
Radius and Height both go up to 500. For anything bigger, scale the node up with Scale rather than pushing Radius or Height past their range.
Segments only affects the tessellated mesh. With Analytical on the cylinder is defined as a Distance Field shape and Segments has no visible effect.
Worked example
Add a Cylinder. Set Radius and Height for the column.
Raise Segments for a smoother round profile, or lower it for a faceted drum look.
Wire a Color, Image, or Material node into Fill to drive the surface.
Turn Analytical on for a shape that combines cleanly with other primitives and stays crisp at any zoom.