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| title = "Networks and nodes" | |
| [extra] | |
| order = 1 # Page number after chapter intro | |
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| In Graphite, users build their artwork by connecting nodes together in a graph. When they want to organize and reuse a complex group of nodes, those may be encapsulated together as a subgraph in which one parent node represents the functionality of its children. In fact, many of the nodes provided in Graphite are themselves subgraphs built out of other nodes. | |
| Double-clicking on nodes backed by a subgraph will display the subgraph's interior. Double-clicking nodes that are, instead, backed directly by Rust source code will open a code editor. | |
| Any (sub)graph can import/export data from/to the outside world. For example, a reusable subgraph may receive an imported image then use several nodes to process it and finally export the result. Or the root-level artwork graph may import the animation timestamp and render a frame of the artwork then export it to the canvas. | |
| In the Graphite editor UI, here is an example graph of artwork that imports no data but exports its content to the canvas: | |
| <img src="https://static.graphite.rs/content/index/gui-mockup-nodes__5.avif" onerror="this.onerror = null; this.src = this.src.replace('.avif', '.png')" alt="Node graph UI mockup" /> | |
| The graph shown above represents the full artwork, meaning it's the root-level graph in its document. But there is nothing special about that graph compared to any subgraph. To avoid the confusion of calling it a graph or subgraph which comes with implications about user-facing concepts in the context of a document, we will use the less-ambiguous term **network** in the context of Graphene's internal concepts and codebase. | |
| ## Networks | |
| A node network can be thought of as a box containing a finite set of nodes that are connected together as a directed acyclic graph (DAG). The network is only concerned with its own node-to-node data flow. But to interact with the outside world, data can be imported into the network and exported out of it. From the inside, those imported/exported data sources/destinations are connected to the other nodes in the network. From the outside, a network can be considered a "black box" that is simply fed inputs and can be executed to produce outputs. | |
| ***More coming soon...*** | |