on the vdb from polygon node exterior node was set to 1 world unit
also on the point vop
the distance is clamped to 0 to 1 adjust these 2 settings then you are good…
please note that distance below 0 is for inside the volume…

See the attached file that shows both using Volumes to do particle culling and nearest location with an almost identical VOP network when compared with the ICE graph. I had to flip the logic in one step from an AND to an OR as I wanted to support a slightly larger subset of inputs.
I commented the nodes to make it self-documenting.

What's neat about this file is I have three conditions that showcase when you want to use volume sdf nearest point locations, nearest location to surface, and where it doesn't matter.

Nice to have both methods under our sleeves.

I liked this task.

Hi Jeff,

that is brilliant! And interesting to dissect, for a noob like me. Now, is there in houdini a similar workflow as in Soft/ICE where I would create and save a custom compound out of this, that would pop up in the tab-menu from then on? Preferably in a custom folder set/subset so i could keep track of my custom operators?

Anyway, thanks a lot!
Jasper

Yes!

You can turn either the VOP network part in to a Houdini Digital Asset (HDA) or the SOP that contains the VOP network in to an HDA or both. When you have an HDA defined in Houdini, it immediately becomes available to you in the tab menu in the given contexts. You can also package up HDA's on the shelf with simple interactive behaviours.

Building tools and turning them in to HDA's is an essential task.