Geometry & 3D node
3D Text
Sets a string in real 3D: every glyph outline is triangulated and extruded into a solid mesh. CoreText does the typesetting — kerning, ligatures and multi-line layout included — and the font family and style are chosen in Settings. Depth is the full thickness, centred on Z = 0. The Geometry output is a normal mesh: deform it, scatter points on it, collide particles with it, or feed a 3D Scene Mesh.
Inputs
| Port | Type | Default |
|---|---|---|
| TextThe string to set — newlines make lines. Cable it (Transcription, String Combine, a Timer's digits) and the mesh rebuilds per change, not per frame. Capped at 4000 characters. | string | Grafit |
| SizeThe font size in Grafit units (clamped 0.01–10) — roughly the line's height. Everything scales with it, including how finely the curves are flattened. | float | 0.3 |
| DepthThe FULL thickness, centred on Z = 0 — 0.2 spans −0.1…+0.1, so the text stays on the plane it was set in. Clamped 0.001–100. | float | 0.08 |
| KernExtra letter spacing in Grafit units, on top of the font's own kerning. Negative tightens; ±10 at most. 0 is the typographer's spacing. | float | 0 |
| Line GapExtra space between lines, added to the font's natural line height. Negative pulls lines together — they can overlap, which is legal geometry. | float | 0 |
| AlignHow shorter lines sit inside the block: Left, Center or Right. The block itself is always centred on the origin. | int | 1 |
| DetailCurve smoothness, 0–1: how closely the mesh follows the glyph's Bézier outlines. 0 is visibly faceted (and cheap), 1 is smooth beyond what a viewport resolves. Straight stems never pay for it — the flattening is adaptive. | float | 0.5 |
Outputs
| Port | Type |
|---|---|
| Geometry | structure |
| Outline | structure |
| Width | float |
| Height | float |
| Vertex Count | int |
| Triangle Count | int |
How It Works
3D Text sets a string in real 3D: every glyph outline is triangulated and extruded into a solid mesh. CoreText does the typesetting — kerning, ligatures and multi-line layout included — and the font family and style are chosen in Settings. Depth is the full thickness, centred on Z = 0, so the word stays on the plane you set it in.
The glyphs are filled by Grafit's own triangulator, written because the off-the-shelf one silently abandoned the hard letters. Holes are bridged to the nearest visible vertex (a B has two counters and they must not fight over the same corner); overlapping contours are normalized first (a surprising number of capital As are three shapes pretending to be one); and the walls are flattened adaptively — by chord error and by a maximum tangent turn, so a tight curl gets the segments it needs while a straight stem pays for none. Wall normals crease at 30°, caps carry assigned flat normals.
The Outline output gives the glyph contours as a Points path with pen-lifts between contours, for Scope Voice, Lines Visualize or Path. The Geometry output is an ordinary mesh: deform it, array it, sweep particles along it, drop a shadow from it.
Use Cases
- Dimensional titles — Real extruded type in a lit, shadowed 3D Scene.
- Type on a curve — Into Geometry Curve Deform along a Path.
- Oscilloscope lettering — The Outline into Scope Voice: a rotating word you can hear.
- Particles on letterforms — Particles Along Geometry riding the text.
- Scene labels — Axis names and captions as real geometry inside the scene.
Tips
- Depth is centred on the plane the text was set in, so changing it does not move the word.
- For labels inside a scene, keep them thin — Depth around 0.01 at Size 0.07–0.09 — and cool mid-grey with a little emission, so they read without shouting.
- The Detail setting trades triangle count against curve smoothness; visibly faceted at the low end, beyond a viewport's resolution at the high.
- Multi-line works: newlines make lines, and Line Gap and Align are ports.
- The Outline output carries pen-lifts, so anything that understands that convention can draw or play it.
Open 3D Text in the interactive catalog →
3D Text is one of 381 nodes in Grafit Pro.
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