Pure Data

Object List

As Pd-Extended is constantly growing at the hand of several developers all around the world, it isn't possible to have a 100% complete list of objects. Neverthough, the next chapters include many of the most important libraries.

The chapter division takes the original categories designed by Miller Puckette. Only specific libraries which have a closed identity - for example like GEM - have a page of their own. The categories for now are:

Dataflow

  • Glue - General dataflow control
  • Math - Mathematical operations
  • Time - Time-related operations
  • Midi - Midi Input/Output
  • Tables - Table and array management
  • Misc - Objects that don't fit any previous category

Audio

  • Audio Glue - General audio control
  • Audio Math - Mathematical operations
  • Audio Oscillators and Tables- Audio generators and table readers
  • Audio Filters - Filters and convolvers
  • Audio Delay- Time-related operations

Patch Management

  • Subwindows - Patch structuring
  • Data Templates and Accessing Data - Objects related to data structures

External libraries

  • GEM - OpenGL graphics and video library
  • PDP - Video library to provide a way to use data packets as messages
  • Physical Modelling - Physical modelling library 

Obsolete - Objects that for some reason became obsolete. Most of them are still available, but you should avoid using them.

Vanilla and Extended Objects

Each distribution of Pd comes with the core objects, which belong to Miller Puckette's original version - Pd-Vanilla. Besides that, it is possible for each user to use libraries of externals compiled by other users. Most people use Pd-Extended, which bundles many externals automatically - others prefer to download and install these libraries themselves.

Each page of this list is divided into two sections, Vanilla Objects and Extended Objects. In many pages you'll see many more extended objects than vanilla ones.

Organisation

Each chapter has a table with the following columns:

  • Name - Name of the object
  • Library/Path - name of the library to where it belongs (these libraries are stored in your pd/extra folder)
  • Function - Short description given by the author

Due to the decentralised development of Pure Data externals, it sometimes happens that some name clashes between objects happen - sometimes even for objects with very different functions! In case the object you saw from the list isn't the object you were thinking about, the easiest way to make sure you have the right object is to write its complete namespace: for example, if you want to use the [makesymbol] object from the zexy library, you can either write [makesymbol] or [zexy/makesymbol].