Visual Families

Each public visual family has a concise reference page with status, backend support, an exact dense-data contract, picking notes, and links to verified C and Python examples.

Use the Examples gallery for complete executable source. Use Choose a visual family when deciding between neighboring families.

Visual families are batching units. Prefer one visual with many items over many visuals with one item each. Use per-item attributes for position, color, size, radius, state, and related styling whenever the visual family supports them.

Reading The Attribute Tables

Unless a family page says otherwise:

• N is the logical item or path-point count. Every array passed together to dvz_visual_set_data_many() must have the same first dimension N.
• C shapes describe one element followed by the array cardinality, for example vec3[N]. Python shapes use NumPy notation, for example (N, 3).
• position attributes use the visual's authored coordinate space, normally data coordinates transformed by the panel attachment and controller. Names ending in _px use logical pixels.
• The normal Python route is import datoviz as dvz with C-contiguous NumPy arrays. Use float32, uint8, and uint32 exactly where specified.
• A full upload uses dvz_visual_set_data() or dvz_visual_set_data_many(). Update a contiguous existing interval with dvz_visual_set_data_range().
• "Required" means required for the documented family mode to render. No implicit value should be assumed for a missing required dense attribute.

The registry also supports selected constant, per-span, or per-group attribute sources. Those are advanced source configurations, not one-row broadcasting in the dense upload API. See Visual attributes and the generated Visuals and composites API for exact setters and signatures.

Preview	Family	Status	Primary use	Example
	Point	supported	Dense circular point sprites for scatter plots and point clouds	Example
	Pixel	supported	Screen-aligned square cells or dense sparse rasters	Example
	Marker	supported	Symbolic point marks with configurable shapes	Example
	Splat	experimental	Experimental Gaussian splats	Example
	Segment	supported	Independent line segments with per-segment styling	Example
	Path	supported	Connected polylines, curves, and trajectories	Example
	Vector	supported	Arrow or vector-field glyphs	Example
	Primitive	supported	Simple triangle or line primitive batches	Example
	Image	supported	2D sampled fields, textures, and image quads	Example
	Text	supported	Semantic text annotations and labels	Example
	Glyph	experimental	Low-level atlas glyph quads	Example
	Labels	supported	Categorical integer sampled fields and segmentation masks	Example
	Mesh	supported	Triangle meshes, surfaces, and textured geometry	Example
	Sphere	supported	3D sphere impostors with radius and lighting	Example
	Volume	supported	3D sampled scalar fields	Example

Reference pages intentionally avoid long standalone programs. The canonical source files under examples/c/visuals/ and generated gallery pages are the executable source of truth.