What this guide covers
This site documents the complete public Native 3D CORE interface present in GX-TXT 0.9.8.10-dev-040. It covers the plain C ABI, geometry and CAD, scientific datasets and fields, rendering and interaction, animation, caches/jobs, and the GX-TXT integration boundary. It is intentionally broader than the historical NATIVE_3D_ENGINE_API_v1.md implementation record.
core/native3d/lib/libgx3de.so. All 374 declared public functions are exported. Conceptual behavior is reconstructed from the headers, current implementation records, renderer/field/animation documentation, validation programs, and the Viewer Provider adapter.The API in one picture
The design separates authoritative scientific/geometry state from presentation. Meshes, B-Reps and scientific objects live in scenes; a view carries camera and presentation state; a target supplies the rendering surface; a viewport maps one view into a target rectangle. Derived geometry is published as new immutable objects rather than mutating source data.
Recommended reading paths
| Goal | Read first | Then |
|---|---|---|
| Write a new C/native consumer | ABI, errors & capabilities | Ownership → Examples |
| Import and repair 3D geometry | Geometry & mesh | B-Rep & STEP |
| Publish scientific 3D data | Scientific data | Fields & animation |
| Build an interactive viewer | Rendering | Picking & manipulation |
| Use dev-40 density/particle features | Presentation additions | dev-038 → dev-040 changes |
| Audit every symbol | Engine reference | Types + Constants |
Public headers
| Header | Role | Functions |
|---|---|---|
native_3d_engine_api_v1.h | Base ABI: geometry, scientific data, rendering, interaction, CAD, annotations, caches/jobs | 332 |
native_3d_animation_api_v1.h | Deterministic timelines, lazy frames, multilayer animation, derived field layers, PNG sequences | 36 |
native_3d_field_api_v1.h | Field-source inspection, streamlines, slices, pathlines, volume transfer presentation | 6 |
Key dev-40 addition
dev-40 does not replace the existing particle primitive. It adds direct RGB/RGBA binding to ordinary scientific point arrays and raises the scientific sphere-glyph path to a 100,000-instance safety ceiling subject to the global display-triangle budget. This is the preferred path for sampled scientific density; gx3de_particle_cloud remains a geometric-sphere primitive for atoms, beads and similar explicit entities.
PLOT_3D_API_v2 and PLOT_DATASET_3D_API_v1 are higher-level plotting/workflow APIs. They can feed the Native 3D viewer, but they are not the Native 3D CORE C ABI documented here. See GX-TXT integration boundaries.