This property node may be used to efficiently specify coordinates, normals, texture coordinates, colors, transparency values, material binding and normal binding for vertex-based shapes, i.e., shapes of class SoVertexShape. An SoVertexProperty node can be used as a child of a group node in a scene graph, in which case the properties it specifies are inherited by subsequent shape nodes in the graph. It can also be directly referenced as the VertexProperty SoSFField of a vertex-based shape, bypassing scene graph inheritance.

When directly referenced by a VertexProperty SoSFField of a vertex-based shape, the SoVertexProperty node is the most efficient way of specifying vertex-based shapes. Use of the directly referenced SoVertexProperty node results in significantly faster scene rendering than scene graph inheritance of vertex properties, provided all required vertex properties are specified in the SoVertexProperty node.

Because the class SoVertexProperty is derived from SoNode, a vertex property node can be inserted as a child node in a scene graph. When inserted as a node in a scene graph, the SoVertexProperty node is traversed as any other property node and the properties it specifies are inherited by subsequent shape nodes in the scene graph. It specifies the current material and normal bindings, and can be used to specify the current 3D coordinates, the current normals, the current texture coordinates, the current diffuse colors, and the current transparencies.

All multiple-valued fields in the SoVertexProperty node are optional. If a field is not present (i.e. if it has 0 values), then shapes that require the missing information are required to obtain it from the current traversal state. However, users are cautioned that, for optimal performance, the vertex property node should be referenced as the VertexProperty field of an SoVertexShape, and should specify in its fields all values required to render that shape.

The various fields in a vertex property node can be used in place of corresponding fields in other property nodes, as follows: The vertex field contains 3D coordinates, as in the point field of an SoCoordinate3 node. The normal field contains normal vectors, as in the vector field of the SoNormal node. The orderedRGBA field contains packed colors in the hexadecimal format 0xrrggbbaa, where rr is the red value (between 00 and 0xFF hex) gg is the green value (between 00 and 0xFF hex) bb is the blue value (between 00 and 0xFF hex) aa is the alpha value (between 00 = transparent and 0xFF = opaque). The packed colors are equivalent to an SoPackedColor node, and provide values for both diffuse color and transparency. The texCoord field replaces the point field of the SoTextureCoordinate2 node.

If the transparency type is SoGLRenderAction::SCREEN_DOOR, only the first transparency value will be used. With other transparency types, multiple transparencies will be used.

The materialBinding field replaces the value field of the SoMaterialBinding node. The materialBinding field in a directly referenced SoVertexProperty node has no effect unless there is a nonempty orderedRGBA field, in which case the material binding specifies the assignment of diffuse colors and alpha values to the shape. The materialBinding field can take as value any of the material bindings supported by Inventor.

The normalBinding field replaces the value field of the SoNormalBinding node. The normalBinding field of a directly referenced SoVertexProperty node has no effect unless there is a nonempty normal field, in which case the normal binding specifies the assignment of normal vectors to the shape. The value of the normalBinding field can be any of the normal bindings supported by Inventor.