Simple Mesh Layer with Binary Attributes

[abdcelik]

I’m new to deck.gl and 3D graphics, still learning the basics.

In my app, I’m using SimpleMeshLayer with luma.gl’s CubeGeometry to draw shapes. While looking into performance optimization, I came across binary attributes. The docs seem clear, but I think I’m missing something.

getPosition and getColor work with binary attributes, but getScale and getOrientation don’t. Example:

const source: IBinaryModel= {
  length: 1,
  positions: { value: new Float32Array([0, 0, 0]), size: 3 },
  colors: { value: new Uint8Array([255, 0, 0, 128]), size: 4 },
  scales: { value: new Float32Array([2, 1, 1]), size: 3 },
  orientations: { value: new Float32Array([1, 2, 0]), size: 3 },
};

const testLayer = new SimpleMeshLayer<IBinaryModel>({
  id: 'testLayer',
  mesh: new CubeGeometry(),
  data: {
    length: source.length,
    attributes: {
      getPosition: source.positions,
      getColor: source.colors,
      getScale: source.scales,
      getOrientation: source.orientations,
    },
    coordinateSystem: COORDINATE_SYSTEM.CARTESIAN,
  },
});

What am I doing wrong here?

Also, looking into the SimpleMeshLayer source code, I saw that attributeManager registers instancePositions, instanceColors, and I noticed instanceModelMatrix with accessors like getOrientation. Maybe I’m misunderstanding how these should work. Can you clarify?