Reference / Nodes

Vision

Computer-vision nodes that analyze the image and hand you back data. They run Apple’s Vision and CoreML frameworks on a background queue, pass the source through untouched, and expose results both as overlay textures and as float ports you can route into any parameter.

Detection is throttled and smoothed (exponential moving average) so the tracked values glide at full render rate without jitter. Tuning fields like confidence and detection rate live in the inspector; the ports below are the connectable inputs and outputs.

Face Detection

faceDetectionVision

Detects faces in the image and emits a box overlay, an alpha mask, and per-face position/size data.

Inputs

Port	Type	Default	Range	Notes
texture	texture	,	,	Image to analyze.

Outputs

Port	Type	Default	Range	Notes
texture	texture	,	,	Source passthrough (zero-copy).
overlay	texture	,	,	Transparent canvas with bounding boxes.
mask	texture	,	,	White inside face regions, transparent outside.
faceCount	float	,	,	Number of detected faces.
face1X	float	,	0 – 1	Center X of the largest face (0.5 if none).
face1Y	float	,	0 – 1	Center Y of the largest face.
face1Size	float	,	0 – 1	Normalized long-edge size.

Runs VNDetectFaceRectangles (~5–15 ms/frame on Apple Silicon, no model file needed). Composite overlay back over the video, use mask to isolate or blur faces, or drive effects from the largest face’s position. Box and mask styling, confidence and max-face count are inspector fields.

Pose Tracking

poseTrackingVision

Tracks a human skeleton and emits a passthrough, a skeleton overlay, a detected flag, and X/Y ports for 13 joints.

Inputs

Port	Type	Default	Range	Notes
texture	texture	,	,	Image to analyze.

Outputs

Port	Type	Default	Range	Notes
texture	texture	,	,	Source passthrough.
overlay	texture	,	,	Transparent canvas with bones + joints.
detected	float	,	,	1 if a body was found, else 0.
headX / headY	float	,	0 – 1	Nose joint, normalized, top-left origin.
leftShoulderX / Y	float	,	0 – 1	Left shoulder.
rightShoulderX / Y	float	,	0 – 1	Right shoulder.
leftElbowX / Y	float	,	0 – 1	Left elbow.
rightElbowX / Y	float	,	0 – 1	Right elbow.
leftWristX / Y	float	,	0 – 1	Left wrist.
rightWristX / Y	float	,	0 – 1	Right wrist.
leftHipX / Y	float	,	0 – 1	Left hip.
rightHipX / Y	float	,	0 – 1	Right hip.
leftKneeX / Y	float	,	0 – 1	Left knee.
rightKneeX / Y	float	,	0 – 1	Right knee.
leftAnkleX / Y	float	,	0 – 1	Left ankle.
rightAnkleX / Y	float	,	0 – 1	Right ankle.

Runs VNDetectHumanBodyPose on the first detected body. Each of the 13 joints is exposed as a separate ...X and ...Y float port (the table pairs them for brevity) - normalized 0–1 with a top-left origin and EMA-smoothed. Drive instancers, particles or distortions from a wrist or the head, or composite the skeleton overlay for a motion-capture look.

Optical Flow

opticalFlowVision

Computes per-pixel motion between consecutive frames, encoded as a texture (RG = motion XY, B = magnitude).

Inputs

Port	Type	Default	Range	Notes
texture	texture	,	,	Current frame; compared against the previous one.
sensitivity	float	10	,	Motion amplification.

Outputs

Port	Type	Default	Range	Notes
texture	texture	,	,	R/G = motion X/Y (0.5 = none), B = magnitude.

Estimates flow with a Horn-Schunck-style gradient method against the previous frame. The encoded vectors are ready to drive displacement, speed masks or motion-reactive effects - feed it into a Noise Displace or read its blue channel as a motion amount. Pre-blur and a motion threshold are inspector fields.

Depth Estimation

depthEstimationVision

Produces a grayscale monocular depth map from any 2D image, with range remap, invert, smoothing and depth-slab isolation.

Inputs

Port	Type	Default	Range	Notes
texture	texture	,	,	Image to estimate depth from.
near	float	0	0 – 1	Lower depth bound; maps to white.
far	float	1	0 – 1	Upper depth bound; maps to black.
smoothing	float	0.4	0 – 1	Temporal EMA; 1 = frozen frame.
invert	bool	false	,	Swap near/far so close = black.
isolateEnabled	bool	false	,	Enable depth-slab isolation.
isolateTarget	float	0.5	0 – 1	Center depth of the band.
isolateWidth	float	0.2	0 – 1	Width of the band.
isolateFalloff	float	0.08	0 – 1	Smooth falloff outside the band.

Outputs

Port	Type	Default	Range	Notes
depth	texture	,	,	Grayscale depth map (16-bit float).

Runs the DepthAnything V2 CoreML model to infer depth from a single image - no depth camera required. A Metal post-pass remaps the range, inverts, smooths over time, and can isolate a depth slab. Pair it with Depth Displacement or 3D Effects to push foreground and background apart.