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Raycast

Cast a ray and get intersections with polygons

Written by Holly Conrad Smith

Use this to test line-of-sight or find where a direction from a point first hits something — for example, checking a view corridor from a balcony, or finding where a sightline first meets a neighboring building's footprint.

Category: Geometric Operations

Kind: Operation

Description: cast a ray and get intersections with polygons

Inputs

Name

Abbreviation

Type

Access

Description

origin

O

Vector

Item

the origin of the ray

direction

D

Vector

Item

the direction of the ray

features

F

Cartesian

List

the polygons to test the ray against

Outputs

Name

Abbreviation

Type

Access

Description

intersections

I

Object

List

where the ray hit, including which surface it hit and its normal direction

How to

  1. Add the Raycast node.

  2. Set "origin" — a Vector, often from Vector Centroid (the center of a starting geometry) or Construct Vector (a point you're specifying by hand).

  3. Set "direction" — also a Vector, often from Vector from Line (point toward another feature), or Unit X / Unit Y / Unit Z for a fixed compass-aligned direction.

  4. Feed in the polygons to test against as "features" — typically from Read Static Layer or Get Raw Features.

  5. The output lists every point where the ray crosses one of those polygons.

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