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Datoviz Rendering Protocol (DRP)

The Datoviz Rendering Protocol (DRP) is a low-level specification intended to describe and execute GPU rendering pipelines in a backend-agnostic way. It is inspired by WebGPU and Vulkan, and is designed to serve as a foundation for flexible, portable, high-performance graphics in scientific applications.

The Datoviz Scene API, which includes everything documented on this website, is entirely based on DRP.

Status

Warning

DRP is not yet documented in the Python API.

The core infrastructure exists in the C backend, but it depends on runtime compilation of GPU shaders (SPIR-V). We are currently evaluating the best way to bundle a SPIR-V compiler into Datoviz while preserving cross-platform compatibility.

Until a robust, lightweight solution is found, DRP will remain experimental and not documented on the Python side.

Goals

DRP is designed to:

  • Represent GPU rendering pipelines declaratively
  • Support custom visuals and advanced rendering techniques
  • Enable fully dynamic shader graphs and GPU computation workflows

In the long term, it will serve as the backend for custom shaders and rendering pipelines.

See Also

This page will be updated once DRP becomes available in user-facing APIs.