code: def _read_ply_element_ascii(f, definition: _PlyElementType):
      """
      Decode all instances of a single element from an ascii .ply file.
  
      Args:
          f: file-like object being read.
          definition: The element object which describes what we are reading.
  
      Returns:
          In simple cases where every element has the same size, 2D numpy array
          corresponding to the data. The rows are the different values.
          Otherwise a list of lists of values, where the outer list is
          each occurrence of the element, and the inner lists have one value per
          property.
      """
      if not definition.count:
          return []
      if definition.is_constant_type_fixed_size():
          return _read_ply_fixed_size_element_ascii(f, definition)
      if definition.is_fixed_size():
          return _read_ply_nolist_element_ascii(f, definition)
      if definition.try_constant_list():
          data = _try_read_ply_constant_list_ascii(f, definition)
          if data is not None:
              return data
  
      # We failed to read the element as a lump, must process each line manually.
      data = []
      for _i in range(definition.count):
          line_string = f.readline()
          if line_string == "":
              raise ValueError(
                  "Not enough data for %s." % definition.name
              )
          datum = []
          line_iter = iter(line_string.strip().split())
          for property in definition.properties:
              _parse_heterogeneous_property_ascii(
                  datum, line_iter, property
              )
          data.append(datum)
          if next(line_iter, None) is not None:
              raise ValueError("Too much data for an element.")
      return data
  
imports: import itertools
  import os
  import struct
  import sys
  import warnings
  from collections import namedtuple
  from dataclasses import asdict, dataclass
  from io import BytesIO, TextIOBase
  from typing import List, Optional, Tuple
  import numpy
  import torch
  from iopath.common.file_io import PathManager
  from pytorch3d.io.utils import _check_faces_indices, _make_tensor, _open_file, _read_image, PathOrStr
  from pytorch3d.renderer import TexturesUV, TexturesVertex
  from pytorch3d.structures import Meshes, Pointclouds
  from .pluggable_formats import endswith, MeshFormatInterpreter, PointcloudFormatInterpreter
label_desc: Use image node_id 5 for calling a global function with example usage: _read_ply_element_ascii(f, definition) and returns: data, list, _read_ply_fixed_size_element_ascii, _read_ply_nolist_element_ascii, data