Glossary
- async
Common abbreviation of asynchronous.
- asynchronous
Term for an operation that is running in the background, as opposed to blocking the flow of the code until it is completed.
- bam
Binary model format native to Panda3D, containing a direct representation of the memory structure of a Panda3D scene graph, making this format quick to load and ideal for caching and distribution.
- coroutine
A function that can be suspended and resumed at a later point. See Coroutines.
- egg
A model file format native to Panda3D which is text-based, meaning it can be opened and inspected using a text editor. See Egg Files.
- future
A special handle that represents an asynchronous operation that will complete at some point in the future. Sometimes called a “promise” in other programming languages. Implemented in Panda3D via
AsyncFuture.- glb
A binary form of the glTF file format.
- glTF
A standard model and scene file format. See glTF Files.
- instancing
The practice of showing a particular 3D model multiple times without duplicating the model in memory, see Instancing.
- interrogate
A tool included with Panda3D that is used to generate Python bindings for C++ code. It is used to make the C++ classes and functions of Panda3D accessible to Python code. See Interrogate.
- interval
A predetermined animation between two states of a particular property (usually two positions or rotations of a model), see Intervals. Multiple intervals can be combined together into compound intervals using Sequences and Parallels.
- material
A description of how 3D geometry should visually appear in the presence of a light source. See Materials.
- model
A model is a tree of nodes, usually loaded from a file on disk, containing a collection of pieces of geometry and a description of the materials used to render them.
- node
A particular element in the Panda3D scene graph, represented by a
PandaNodeobject (or a sub-class thereof).- node path
A path describing how to reach a particular node from the root of the scene graph. In the presence of Instancing, there can be different paths referring to the same node. Represented in Panda3D by the
NodePathclass.- parallel
A type of interval that executes two or more other intervals at the same time, see Sequences and Parallels.
- PBR
Physically-based rendering, a method of defining materials that more accurately models the reflection of light on objects, enabling more physically accurate rendering results.
- physics
A system that calculates how objects should move when acted upon by forces and collisions with other objects. See Physics. Note that this is separate from the system that detects whether two objects collide. For that, see Collision Detection.
- pstats
PStats is a tool shipped with Panda3D that is used to display and analyze the performance of a Panda3D program. See Measuring Performance with PStats.
- pview
Model viewer utility that ships with the Panda3D installation, see Previewing Models in pview.
- pzip
Refers to the .pz compression format, or the tool used to produce it.
- render
The default
NodePathcreated to hold the 3D scene graph.- scene graph
This can be any tree of nodes connected together via parent-child relationships, but usually refers to the entire collection of nodes that make up a 3D scene. See The Scene Graph.
- sequence
A type of interval that executes two or more other intervals in succession (ie. the next one starts after the previous one is finished). See Sequences and Parallels.
- texture
An image that is displayed on a model in some manner, see Texturing.