Dave, In there absence I'll have a go... 1. Yes, Java 3D does try to do this sort of optimization. You have probably seen the RenderMolecule, RenderAtom classes reported in exceptions etc. Operations to be sent to the native renderer are described using a RenderMolecule (which has an associated Material, Texture etc.). The RenderMolecules maintain references to the RenderMolecules to their left and right. The RenderMolecule will check the properties of neighboring RenderMolecules and only apply necessary state changes. 2. Yes. It checks for both reference equality (fast) and then checks for "equals" type equality. 3. This might be useful to minimize memory usage. It is a little risky however as you will be "sharing" these Material object references across all objects. If you modify the Material you will potentially apply that modification to all your objects. This might be exactly what you want, but for flexibility you might want to build in some "clone on write" semantics into your caching utility. Sincerely, Daniel Selman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tornado Labs Ltd. http://www.tornadolabs.com -----Original Message----- From: Discussion list for Java 3D API [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of David Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2001 5:36 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Optimization for shared appearances This is a question for the Sun engineers. 1. If you have two shapes which have different appearences, but the same material, do you sort and then only send the material once if possible? 2. Do you sort materials, etc based on their values or the actual instantiation of the Java object? So if I have two materials which are equivelent, but 2 different instantiations of materials do I still get the optimization? 3. I was thinking of writing a caching system where after I build something like a Material I would say Material m = checkMaterial(mm), whereupon it would look in a cache of already instantiated materials and if it finds a match it would return the original and discard the new one. Do you see any issues with this approach? I am planning on doing this for renderingAttributes, transparencyAttributes, coloringAttributes, polygonAttributes and materials. I already cache textures. Dave Yazel =========================================================================== To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and include in the body of the message "signoff JAVA3D-INTEREST". For general help, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and include in the body of the message "help". =========================================================================== To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and include in the body of the message "signoff JAVA3D-INTEREST". For general help, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and include in the body of the message "help".
