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Overview

You can turn on Inspection mode in the toolbox to the left of the 3D view. When Inspection mode is on, Houdini shows a small window with information about what’s under the mouse pointer.

Inspection mode works in the 3D view (for object and geometry networks), the render view, and the compositing view.

Tips

  • You can choose what information Houdini shows using options on the icon’s right-click menu.

  • Inspection mode can be useful in the render view to find out what object generated certain pixels in the render.

  • Houdini temporarily hides the information window when you switch to the View tool (for example, by holding Space).

  • If the inspection tool is too slow, try turning off Magnify Area Under Cursor in the options.

Options

Right-click the Inspection mode icon to show an options menu.

Magnify Area Under Cursor

Show a magnified view of the area under the pointer.

Inspect Objects

Show information about the object under the pointer:

Show Bound Info

Show the bounding box of the object’s display geometry.

Show Bundle/Group Membership

Show all the groups and bundles the object belongs to.

Show Python Script Output

Show the output of a custom python script ($HOUDINI_SCRIPT_PATH/scene/inspect_object.py).

Inspect Primitives

Show information about the primitive under the pointer:

Show Group Membership

Show all the primitive groups that the primitive belongs to.

Show Intrinsics

Show all the intrinsic attributes for the primitive.

Show Material Assignment

Show the primitive level material assignment, if any.

Show Python Script Output

Show the output of a custom python script ($HOUDINI_SCRIPT_PATH/scene/inspect_prim.py).

Inspect Pixels

Information about the raw frame buffer pixel values.

Basics

Getting started

Next steps

Customization

Guru-level