# CUDA.jl : Is the Surface Object available?

**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cuda-jl-is-the-surface-object-available/50796
**Category:** GPU
**Tags:** question, cuda
**Created:** [November 26, 2020, 6:52am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cuda-jl-is-the-surface-object-available/50796 "2020-11-26T06:52:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![kemu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7993a0/32.png) [@kemu](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kemu)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2020, 6:52am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cuda-jl-is-the-surface-object-available/50796/1 "2020-11-26T06:52:39Z")

</div>

I’m investigating porting from python/pycuda to julia/CUDA.jl.

Pycuda supports Texture / Surface Reference API, so we can read the data with interpolation through a texture reference, and write data through a surface reference. It can also switch texture and surface references from a common back-end buffer.

I expected a similar feature in julia and found that CUDA Texture is supported in CuDeviceTexture.

CUDA Surface implementation could not be found, is this not supported? Are there support plans for the future?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![maleadt](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/maleadt/32/10097_2.png) [@maleadt](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/maleadt)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2020, 6:59am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cuda-jl-is-the-surface-object-available/50796/2 "2020-11-26T06:59:08Z")

</div>

They are currently not supported, but I assume it shouldn’t be too hard now that we already support textures. But the feature isn’t planned, no.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![kemu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7993a0/32.png) [@kemu](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kemu)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2020, 8:49am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cuda-jl-is-the-surface-object-available/50796/3 "2020-11-26T08:49:34Z")

</div>

Thanks for getting back so quickly.

It’s a great disappointment that there is no support plan. I’m a computer vision researcher, so the support for Texture and Surface is essential for me to handle image data.

I would appreciate it very much if you could add Surface support to the implementaion list.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![maleadt](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/maleadt/32/10097_2.png) [@maleadt](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/maleadt)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2020, 9:26am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cuda-jl-is-the-surface-object-available/50796/4 "2020-11-26T09:26:53Z")

</div>

> [@kemu](#):
>
> It’s a great disappointment that there is no support plan. I’m a computer vision researcher, so the support for Texture and Surface is essential for me to handle image data.

Well, you’re the first user to ask for it, so you can understand how it’s not at the top of my TODO list. You can always have a look yourself, put an open-source bounty on it, contact Julia Computing, etc.
