Flat Shapes are useful for individual devices and signal groups. Nested Shapes make it possible to route larger operational units, such as an entire room, venue, or remote production, to a facility or production control room (PCR) as one logical selection.
For example, technical staff can model:
A studio room containing program video, clean video, audio, and data structures.
A remote production containing several contribution feeds.
A facility containing compatible ingest or processing structures.
A PCR containing repeated feed inputs.
An operator can then select Remote Production 1 → PCR 2 instead of routing every feed and signal separately. Buttons expands that selection through the Nested Shapes and Matching Presets to create the required physical route requests.
Nested Shapes let one Shape include another Shape as a slot. Because Shapes are blueprints for Virtual Bundles, a bundle created from this blueprint presents the included structure much like a bundle within a bundle. The existing Virtual Bundle itself is not included. Nested Shapes contribute their routing slots and aggregate handles to the new bundle.
This provides a practical fan-in and fan-out model:
Fan-in: a facility or PCR can collect several repeated room or Feed structures under one logical destination bundle.
Fan-out: the same room, Feed, or remote-production structure can be routed to compatible inputs across several facilities or PCR bundles.
Fan-in and fan-out describe how the logical routing structure is organized and reused. They do not imply signal duplication by themselves; the physical routing system must still support every resolved route.
This guide starts with one Feed and one PCR input so the expansion is easy to follow. The same model can then be repeated to represent a complete room or remote production. Keep reverse routing disabled throughout this guide.
Complete the flat-Shape virtual-routing example first. This example assumes that you already have:
A flat source Shape created from a physical source bundle.
A flat destination Shape created from a physical destination bundle.
A forward-only Matching Preset between those Shapes.
The physical source and destination bundles used in that example.
This guide reuses the flat Shapes as Nested Shapes and maps the new Virtual Bundles to the relevant physical ports. The previously created Virtual Bundles remain independent resources.
The Feed-to-PCR example is the smallest useful form of a larger room-to-facility or remote-production-to-PCR route. Once the model is familiar, the same Nested Shape can be repeated for every feed that belongs to the larger source and destination.
Assume the flat source Shape is named Source and contains:
Video
Audio 1
Audio 2
Assume the flat destination Shape is named Destination and contains compatible slots.
You will use Nested Shapes to build:
Feed└── Source ├── Video ├── Audio 1 └── Audio 2PCR└── Feed 1 ├── Video ├── Audio 1 └── Audio 2
Source and Feed 1 use Nested Shapes. The video and audio entries remain their leaf slots.
Map the expanded leaf slots directly to the physical ports used by the current source bundle:
Expand the Nested Shape row in Feed 1.
On its incoming Video leaf, open the route selector.
Choose Physical Ports and select the current physical source bundle's video port.
Repeat this for each outgoing audio leaf.
Review the staged routes.
Select Execute Routes.
Inspect the routing report.
This operation records mappings from the physical source ports to the leaf handles provided by the Nested Shape. Those mappings form the source edge of later end-to-end routes. You are not attaching the earlier Virtual Bundle to Feed 1.
If the source hardware changes later, update these physical mappings. The logical Feed 1 bundle and anything that routes it can remain unchanged.
Under Slots, select the existing flat Destination Shape to add it as a Nested Shape.
Rename its slot to Feed 1.
Save the Shape.
To model several inputs, add the same Destination Shape several times and label the slots Feed 1, Feed 2, and so on. Each slot uses the same reusable Nested Shape.
The bundle exposes an aggregate for the Nested Shape used by Feed 1, with its destination leaf slots underneath.
Map PCR 1 to the current physical destination bundle#
Expand Feed 1 in the PCR 1 bundle.
On its outgoing Video leaf, open the route selector.
Choose Physical Ports and select the current physical destination bundle's video port.
Repeat this for each incoming audio leaf.
Review and execute the staged routes.
Confirm that the expanded leaves show the expected physical mappings.
These mappings form the destination edge of later end-to-end routes. The PCR routing model is now abstracted from the physical destination. Replacing that hardware requires updating these leaf mappings rather than redesigning the PCR Shape, operator panels, or saved routes that use PCR 1.
Virtual-to-virtual routing between these Shapes uses:
A Matching Preset between Feed and PCR.
The existing forward-only Matching Preset between the Source and Destination Shapes used as Nested Shapes.
Open Routing → Virtual → Presets.
Create a new Matching Preset.
Set Name to Feed to PCR.
Set Source Shape to Feed.
Set Destination Shape to PCR.
Leave Reverse Routing off.
Select Create.
In Rules, connect the Feed's Source slot to the PCR's Feed 1 slot.
Select the existing forward-only Source-to-Destination Matching Preset for that rule.
Preview the expanded mapping.
Save Feed to PCR.
The referenced Matching Preset describes how the video and audio leaves match. Feed to PCR can therefore connect the two Nested Shapes without repeating every leaf rule.
Confirm the rule between the Nested Shapes and its referenced Matching Preset.
Inspect the expanded mappings and resulting physical destination changes.
Select Take.
Review the routing report and route state.
The Matching Preset expands the logical route through:
The Feed and PCR Shapes.
Their Nested Shapes.
The referenced Matching Preset.
The video and audio leaf slots.
The physical ports mapped to those leaves.
Buttons follows each completed path from its physical source to its physical destination and creates the physical route request needed for that destination.
After becoming familiar with the Feed-to-PCR route, repeat the same structure to represent a larger source:
Create a Shape such as Remote Production or Studio Room.
Add the Feed Shape several times as Nested Shapes, using labels such as Program, Clean, and ISO 1 where appropriate.
Create a compatible Facility or expanded PCR Shape with the required destination Feed structures.
Create a Matching Preset between the larger Shapes.
Add one rule for each corresponding pair of Nested Shapes, referencing the Feed Matching Preset in each rule.
Create Virtual Bundles such as Remote Production 1 and PCR 2.
Map their leaf slots to the physical source and destination ports at each edge.
Operators can now route the complete remote production or room with one virtual-to-virtual selection. They can still use a Nested Shape aggregate when only one Feed structure should be routed.
This separation is especially useful when rooms, remote units, or PCR assignments change regularly. Operator controls can continue to use stable logical bundles while technical staff update the physical edge mappings behind them.
The same multi-signal structure occurs in several Shapes.
Operators need an aggregate for the complete reused structure.
A referenced Matching Preset can express repeated leaf matching once.
The logical routing structure should remain stable while the mapped physical hardware changes.
Keep a Shape flat when its signals do not form a reusable structure. Additional Nested Shapes add route-expansion and matching behavior that technical staff need to understand before production deployment.
