Virtual File System

Overview

TouchDesigner's Virtual File system (VFS) allows image, movie, audio, fonts, other media and any files to be embedded in a .tox or .toe file. You can open and read them as if they are files in the filesystem. This makes .tox and .toe files more portable if they depend on images or sounds or font files. It will of course make your .tox and .toe files larger by whatever the hard drive file size is, but one virtual file can be referred to by multiple OPs at the same time.

The palette component virtualFile in the Tools section lets you store virtual files without scripting.

Accessing Files

Internal files can be addressed directly with the vfs: prefix. Example: vfs:/project1:test.jpg. This VFS address will work in any parameter that is used to point at external files. All Operators that open files, like the Movie File In TOP and Audio File In CHOP allow the VFS syntax in their file parameters.

Details

Unlike locking a TOP where the image saved in the .tox/.toe is compressed with LZW, a Movie File In TOP that refers to a .jpeg file in VFS, it remains fully JPEG compressed. VFS can hold entire movie files and audio files including H.264 and .mp3 files. It can also hold .ttf font files and in some circumstances, .dll files for the CPlusPlus TOP, CPlusPlus SOP and CPlusPlus CHOP.

Together with the Privacy option (can be set using TouchDesigner Pro only), VFS allows for additional privacy of media built into your TouchDesigner .tox/.toe files.

Avoiding Disk Bloat

When using the Virtual File System during development, you can run into problems with large toe/tox file sizes, especially if you keep backup files. The best solution for this is to avoid storing virtual files until you are in the final stages of development. To simulate a Virtual File System during development, reference external files in your operators and either:

• change their file parameters to use vfs in final stages.
• use an expression in their file parameters that switches between external and virtual files based on a global variable.

Usage

Two python classes give you full access to VFS functionality.

• VFS Class - describes a COMP's virtual file system.
• VFSFile Class - describes a virtual file contained within a virtual file system.

Examples

See the above class wikis for full details.

Add a file from disk	op('/base1').vfs.addFile('Banana.tif')
Add an image from TOP	op('/base1').vfs.addByteArray(op('someTop').saveByteArray('.jpg'), 'imageName.jpg')
Delete an image	op('/base1').vfs['Banana.tif'].destroy()
Save virtual file to disk	op('/base1').vfs['Banana.tif'].export('diskFolderName')
Access virtual file in OP's file parameter (constant mode)	vfs:/base1:Banana.tif

Palette Example

Use the Palette:virtualFile component in the Palette (under Tools) as a user interface for VFS. This allows you to use VFS without the scripting that is otherwise required.

Lets you embed files inside a .tox or .toe file. Operators like the Movie File In TOP that read regular files can also read the embedded VFS files using a vfs: syntax.

Lets you embed files inside a .tox or .toe file. Operators like the Movie File In TOP that read regular files can also read the embedded VFS files using a vfs: syntax.

TouchDesigner Component file, the file type used to save a Component from TouchDesigner.

TOuch Environment file, the file type used by TouchDesigner to save your project.

An Operator Family that creates, composites and modifies images, and reads/writes images and movies to/from files and the network. TOPs run on the graphics card's GPU.

Lets you embed files inside a .tox or .toe file. Operators like the Movie File In TOP that read regular files can also read the embedded VFS files using a vfs: syntax.

Lets you embed files inside a .tox or .toe file. Operators like the Movie File In TOP that read regular files can also read the embedded VFS files using a vfs: syntax.

An Operator Family that contains its own Network inside. There are twelve 3D Object Component and eight 2D Panel Component types. See also Network Path.

Any of the procedural data operators. OPs do all the work in TouchDesigner. They "cook" and output data to other OPs, which ultimately result in new images, data and audio being generated. See Node.

A built-in panel in TouchDesigner that contains a library of components and media that can be dragged-dropped into a TouchDesigner network.