The ShapeDistributor is a node that comes in handy when you you want the same shape to serve as input to for multiple nodes, but you would like to be able to easily swap that shape out later.

For example, in the following node graph, the Rectangle is fed into both an extrude and a PlanSweep. But what if, after rigging the Rectangle to multiple nodes, we decide we would rather use the Circle as the Plan?

Without the ShapeDistributor, we would have to connect the Circle to each of the nodes that the Rectangle connects to. When there are only a couple of consumer nodes for the Rectangle, this is not a great effort, but what if the Rectangle were serving as the source shape for a dozen nodes?

Now, if we click on the output of the Rectangle and then click on the ShapeDistributor in the right sidebar NodeMenu, then a ShapeDistributor is added in between the Rectangle and all the downstream nodes it connects to.

Once the ShapeDistributor is in place, it is easy to swap out source shapes. For example, we can just connect the Circle to the input of the ShapeDistributor.

The following short video shows the ShapeDistributor in action: