Depth — tdlidar_depth

Get the phone’s depth-driven visual — raw, plasma, organic and friends — into TouchDesigner as a video TOP with zero OSC wiring.

Category: Camera & Vision · Tier: Free · Needs: a depth camera on the phone (LiDAR rear or TrueDepth front) · same LAN as TD

What it does

The TDLiDAR app turns the phone’s depth camera into a moving visual — the Depth modes: Raw greyscale depth, Plasma (a depth-warped nebula), Organic (a depth-seeded reaction-diffusion), and the other colour-mapped looks. The app does the depth processing and colouring on-device and broadcasts the finished picture over NDI. This op receives that NDI source into a TOP, so you get a ready-made depth visual to composite, key or feed into 3D — instantly, without touching any sensor channels.

NDI in (not OSC)

This op receives NDI video, not OSC. Pick the depth source from the dropdown:

dropdown entry what it is
LOCALHOST (TDLidar) the depth visual stream — whatever Depth mode (raw/plasma/organic/…) the app is currently showing

The source name follows the app’s NDI name index (TDLidar, TDLidar 2, …) so multiple phones stay distinct. Whichever Depth mode is selected in the app is what arrives — switch modes on the phone and the TOP follows.

Outputs

  • out_top (TOP) — the live depth visual, full resolution and frame rate as the phone sends it.

Parameters

| par | default | what it does | |—|—|—| | Source Name | (first found) | which NDI source to receive (the depth stream) | | Receive Format | RGBA | colour format to decode into (RGBA preserves any alpha the mode sends) |

Quick start (beginner)

  1. In the TDLiDAR app, open the Depth mode and pick a look (Raw, Plasma, Organic, …). That starts the NDI source.
  2. Drop the Depth op and choose the matching entry in the Source Name dropdown.
  3. The tile previews the depth visual; out_top carries it live.
  4. Wire out_top into a Composite TOP or straight onto a Render — you have depth visuals on screen in seconds.

Advanced patterns

  • Recolour in TD: receive the Raw depth mode and run out_top through a Lookup TOP (depth → custom ramp) to apply your own palette live, instead of baking the colour on the phone.
  • Displace 3D geometry: depth maps to height — feed out_top into a Displace TOP or sample it in a GLSL/POP pass to push points by brightness, turning the flat depth image into relief that reacts to the real scene.
  • Key the subject: modes that send a transparent background drop straight onto your composite when decoded as RGBA — or build a Threshold/Chroma Key TOP to isolate near depth from far.
  • Drive parameters from the picture: an Analyze TOP (average/max) over out_top gives you a single number — overall nearness/activity — to modulate audio-reactive or feedback systems off the depth feed.

Gotchas

  • NDI, not OSC. No OSC Port here — an empty dropdown means a network/firewall issue or the app isn’t streaming, not a port mismatch.
  • The app picks the look. This op shows whatever Depth mode the phone is on; to change Plasma↔Organic↔Raw you switch in the app (or recolour Raw in TD).
  • Same LAN, mDNS allowed. NDI discovery is Bonjour-based; client-isolated/guest Wi-Fi hides the source even with working internet.
  • It’s a picture, not metric depth. This is the colour-mapped visual, not per-pixel metres. For exact 3D points use the Point Cloud op; for room geometry use Scene Build.