Entity

Overview

The Entity class is the abstract base class for objects that can be attached to a Node in the Aspose.3D scene graph. Concrete subclasses include Mesh, Camera, Light, and Geometry. Entity provides access to the parent node hierarchy and exposes the excluded property for visibility control.

All attributes listed below are properties; access them without parentheses.

from aspose.threed import Scene
from aspose.threed.entities import Mesh

scene = Scene.from_file("model.obj")

for node in scene.root_node.child_nodes:
    entity = node.entity
    if entity is not None:
        # excluded is a property, not a method call
        if not entity.excluded:
            # parent_node is a property, not a method call
            parent = entity.parent_node
            print(f"Active entity '{entity.name}', parent: {parent.name if parent else 'None'}")

Inheritance

A3DObject → SceneObject → Entity

Subclasses: Geometry → Mesh, Camera, Light, and others.

Constructor

Entity is an abstract base class and is not instantiated directly. Use a concrete subclass such as Mesh.

Properties

Name	Type	Description
`parent_nodes`	`list[Node]` (read-only)	All parent nodes to which this entity is attached. Supports instancing (same entity referenced from multiple nodes).
`parent_node`	`Optional[Node]` (read/write)	The primary parent node, or `None` if the entity is not attached.
`excluded`	`bool` (read/write)	When `True`, this entity is excluded from rendering. Access and set as a property: `entity.excluded = True`.
`name`	`str` (read/write)	Human-readable name for this entity.
`properties`	`PropertyCollection` (read-only)	Collection of custom properties.

Methods

Method	Return Type	Description
`get_property(name)`	`Any`	Gets a property value by name.
`find_property(name)`	`Optional[Property]`	Finds a property by name.

Important: parent_node, parent_nodes, and excluded are properties, not methods. Do not call them with parentheses. The correct patterns are:

# CORRECT
is_excluded = entity.excluded
parent = entity.parent_node
parents = entity.parent_nodes

# WRONG: do not do this
is_excluded = entity.excluded()   # TypeError
parent = entity.parent_node()     # TypeError

To set parent_node, assign to the property:

entity.parent_node = some_node    # CORRECT

Example

Inspect entity state after loading a scene:

from aspose.threed import Scene
from aspose.threed.entities import Mesh

scene = Scene.from_file("model.stl")

for node in scene.root_node.child_nodes:
    entity = node.entity
    if entity is None:
        continue

    # Properties accessed without parentheses
    print(f"Entity: {entity.name or '(unnamed)'}")
    print(f"  Type: {type(entity).__name__}")
    print(f"  Excluded: {entity.excluded}")
    print(f"  Parent node: {entity.parent_node.name if entity.parent_node else 'None'}")

    if isinstance(entity, Mesh):
        print(f"  Vertices: {len(entity.control_points)}")
        print(f"  Polygons: {entity.polygon_count}")