MeshDataArray

Description

An array of Mesh data snapshots for C# Job System access.

Access to most Unity objects is not thread-safe, so in order to efficiently process or create meshes from the C# Job System, use the MeshDataArray and MeshData structs.

You can use Mesh.AcquireReadOnlyMeshData for read-only access to mesh data of multiple meshes, and Mesh.AllocateWritableMeshData together with Mesh.ApplyAndDisposeWritableMeshData for creating new meshes.

A single MeshDataArray struct represents snapshot of mesh data of multiple meshes. Use Length and index operator to access data of an individual Mesh. Memory allocation and C# Job System safety tracking is built into MeshDataArray struct, so that the tracking overhead is minimal when working with multiple meshes at the same time. It is thus much more efficient to use a single MeshDataArray/ struct for multiple meshes, than to operate on several individual structs.

It is important to dispose of a MeshDataArray struct once you have finished working with it. Use Dispose to dispose of the struct when you have finished using it, or use the C# using pattern to do this automatically:

using Unity.Collections;
using UnityEngine;
public class ExampleScript : MonoBehaviour
{
    void Start()
    {
        var mesh = new Mesh();
        mesh.vertices = new[] {Vector3.one, Vector3.zero};
        using (var dataArray = Mesh.AcquireReadOnlyMeshData(mesh))
        {
            var data = dataArray[0];
            // prints "2"
            Debug.Log(data.vertexCount);
            var gotVertices = new NativeArray<Vector3>(mesh.vertexCount, Allocator.TempJob);
            data.GetVertices(gotVertices);
            // prints "(1.0, 1.0, 1.0)" and "(0.0, 0.0, 0.0)"
            foreach (var v in gotVertices)
                Debug.Log(v);
            gotVertices.Dispose();
        }
    }
}

Additional resources: Mesh.AcquireReadOnlyMeshData, Mesh.AllocateWritableMeshData, Mesh.ApplyAndDisposeWritableMeshData, MeshData.

Properties

Public Methods