There is disclosed in an example, a pourable smart matter having a plurality of compute nodes, the compute nodes having: a mechanical structure having a plurality of faces, the faces having abutting face detectors; a network interface; and one or more logic elements comprising a positional engine to: identify a neighbor compute node abutting at least one of the faces; and build an individual positional profile based at least in part on the identifying. The pourable smart matter may be used, for example, to determine the geometry or volume of a container.