Filter node
Time Scanner
A scanner that photographs ONE LINE at a time — the slit-scan, taken further. What it scans stays IN the picture and flows away by itself, Speed pixels per frame, whatever the scanner does meanwhile; the scanner only makes NEW picture where it is. Standing still it scans its own line and the flow stretches it into a strip of time (photo finish); moved — dragged in the Render View, by a tracked position, in a loop, back and forth, or one pass per Trigger — it develops the band it passes over (a flatbed scanner). Speed 0 is a pure flatbed. Line Width sets how broad a band of live picture it takes. Shape: a straight Line at any Rotation, a Ring growing from a centre (rings of time), a Ray turning like a radar. Cable a Depth image in and the strip becomes cloth: Depth Displace slips it along the line, Depth Time pushes near and far apart, Relief lights the folds; without a cable the picture’s own brightness is the depth. Wave makes it flutter like a flag pinned to the line, Drift shears it (a spiral, in a ring).
Inputs
| Port | Type | Default |
|---|---|---|
| EnableOff clears the picture and gives the scanner’s memory back. Switching it on again starts with nothing scanned. | bool | true |
| ImageThe moving picture to scan: a Video Player, a Camera Input, any generator or filter. One line is scanned for every NEW frame of this source. | image | — |
| DepthAn image whose brightness is depth — a Depth Estimation pass, a gradient, a noise. It is scanned together with the line and drives Depth Displace, Depth Time and Relief. Uncabled, the picture’s own brightness is used. | image | — |
| WidthThe content width this node reports downstream, in Grafit units. Cable the source’s Width here so that proportions survive the chain. | float | 2 |
| HeightThe content height this node reports downstream, in Grafit units. | float | 2 |
| ScanPush: the line is a border \— one side is always live, on the other the scan flows away by itself. Moved towards the live side the line develops what it passes; moved back, live returns behind it. Push Both Ways: a scan on both sides. Sweep: a flatbed \— nothing flows, what the line passes is kept. | int | 0 |
| ShapeLine: a straight scanner at any Rotation. Ring: a circle round the Center — the past is pushed outwards in rings, a tunnel of time. Ray: a line from the Center turning like a radar; the whole turn is the past. | int | 0 |
| RotationTurns the scanner, in degrees, clockwise: 0 pushes to the right, 90 downwards, 180 to the left. For a Ring it turns the picture round the ring. (A Ray has its Angle instead.) | float | 0 |
| Center XCentre of the Ring and the Ray, Grafit units (0 = the middle of the picture). Cable a tracked position in and the rings grow from the performer. | float | 0 |
| Center YCentre of the Ring and the Ray, Grafit units, up positive. | float | 0 |
| Cursor MotionManual: the scanner is where the cursor is \— drag it, or cable a position in; the band it passes over is developed with the live picture. Loop: it travels across and starts again. Ping-Pong: back and forth. Trigger: one pass per trigger, then it parks. | int | 0 |
| Motion SpeedHow fast the scanner travels by itself: crossings of the picture per second (turns per second for a Ray). Negative runs the other way. | float | 0.25 |
| TriggerCursor Motion = Trigger: every rising edge starts ONE pass of the scanner (a trigger that stays on fires once). Uncabled, the Fire button does it by hand — a beat, a key, a MIDI note from the graph. | bool | false |
| Cursor XA Line: where the scanner is, Grafit units. Drag it in the Render View (Show Cursor on) \— it moves only across its own direction \— or cable a tracked position in. | float | 0.6 |
| Cursor YA Line: where the scanner is, Grafit units, up positive. A horizontal scan ignores it. | float | 0 |
| Show CursorDraws the scanner line into the picture and lets you drag it in the Render View. Switch it off for the show — the line is part of the output. | bool | true |
| SpeedHow fast the scanned picture flows away, in pixels per frame of the source (a Ray: degrees per frame). 1 = the classic one line per pixel; more stretches each line. 0 = nothing flows: a pure flatbed scanner. The strip moves whole pixels, so it stays sharp however long it flows. | float | 2 |
| ReverseOne Way: the scanned picture flows to the other side of the line (a Ring: inwards, towards the centre). | bool | false |
| AheadWhat is shown where there is no scan \— before the line, beyond the Reach, under a faded or mixed scan. Live picture, Black, or Transparent (to lay the scan over something else). | int | 0 |
| DriftSlides the strip along the scanner line the farther it gets from it: a shear for a Line, a SPIRAL for a Ring, a zoom for a Ray. | float | 0 |
| Wave AmountThe strip flutters like a flag pinned to the scanner \— still at the line, freer farther out. Through a Camera it waves TOWARDS the camera (in depth); in the flat picture it can only slip along the line. Sweep: the scanner line itself wobbles. In Trigger mode: how far a fired front throws the strip. | float | 0 |
| Wave FrequencyHow many waves fit between the line and the far edge. In Trigger mode it sets the fired front\’s length: 2 = half the way across, 8 = a short ripple. | float | 2 |
| Wave SpeedHow fast the waves run, per second; negative runs them the other way; 0 stands still. In Trigger mode: how many times a second a fired front would cross the whole scan \— 2 = half a second. | float | 0.5 |
| Depth DisplaceThe cloth: depth slips every scanned pixel along the line \— near one way, far the other. In units of the line\’s length; negative turns it round. How it grows from the scanner outwards is Depth Ramp. | float | 0 |
| Depth TimeDepth pushes a pixel in TIME, in frames: near things arrive earlier or later than far ones, so the strip tears along the depth of the scene. | float | 0 |
| ReliefLights the strip from the slope of its depth, as if it had folds: 0 = flat, 1 = cloth, more = carved. Negative lights it from the other side. | float | 0 |
| Age FadeDissolves what has been scanned back into what is Ahead (the live picture, by default) as it gets old: at 1 it is gone after about 600 frames of the source. | float | 0 |
| SmoothA Ray only: blends the two nearest scanned lines for in-between ages. Off = always one real line. | bool | true |
| FreezeStops scanning: the strip stands still and the scanner stops travelling, while the source goes on. | bool | false |
| ClearWipes what has been scanned — the strip or the plate — on a rising edge, or with the button. | bool | false |
| Line WidthHow broad a band of LIVE picture the scanner takes, in pixels. 1 = a true slit: one line, stretched by the flow into a strip of time. Wider = a travelling window of real picture with time smeared out behind it. (The drawn cursor is always a hairline.) | float | 1 |
| ReachHow far from the line the scan shows before it melts back into what is Ahead: 1 = all the way across, 0.3 = a third. For a Ray it is the sector behind the ray: 1 = half a turn (the other half stays live), 2 = the whole turn. Keeps rings and radars readable instead of smearing the whole picture. | float | 1 |
| MixHow strongly the scan lies over what is Ahead: 1 = fully, 0.5 = half-transparent over the live picture, 0 = not at all. | float | 1 |
| RadiusA Ring: how large the scanner circle is, Grafit units. Inside it the picture is live; outside, time is pushed outwards in rings. Drag the ring itself in the Render View, or cable a value in. | float | 0.6 |
| AngleA Ray: which way the scanner points, in degrees, clockwise from “to the right”. Drag the ray in the Render View, cable a value in — or let Cursor Motion turn it like a radar. | float | 0 |
| CameraCable a Camera node in and the scan becomes a SURFACE in space, seen through that camera: depth lifts it (Depth Z), Relief lights its slopes, the wave moves it towards you. With the camera Interactive, grab the scanner line to move it \— anywhere else the mouse orbits the camera. | structure | — |
| Depth ZWith a Camera: how far depth lifts the scan out of the picture, Grafit units — bright (near) towards the camera, dark away from it. Negative turns it round. Held at the scanner and free at the far end by Depth Ramp. | float | 0.5 |
| Depth Ramp1: depth does nothing at the scanner line and grows evenly to its full strength at the far end of the scan — a cloth held by the scanner, free where it is oldest. 0: the same strength everywhere. Acts on Depth Displace, Depth Z and Relief. | float | 1 |
| Wave ModeContinuous: an endless wave runs out along the scan. Trigger: nothing moves until Wave Trigger fires — then ONE front runs out from the scanner, one way, and is gone. For beats, keys and MIDI notes. | int | 0 |
| Wave TriggerWave Mode = Trigger: every rising edge sends one front out along the scan (a trigger that stays on fires once); up to 8 can be under way, so fast beats overlap. Uncabled, the Fire button does it by hand. | bool | false |
Outputs
| Port | Type |
|---|---|
| ImageThe moving picture to scan: a Video Player, a Camera Input, any generator or filter. One line is scanned for every NEW frame of this source. | image |
| WidthThe content width this node reports downstream, in Grafit units. Cable the source’s Width here so that proportions survive the chain. | float |
| HeightThe content height this node reports downstream, in Grafit units. | float |
| Position | float |
Open Time Scanner in the interactive catalog →
Time Scanner is one of 381 nodes in Grafit Pro.
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