[flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance
Is there a way to clock exactly how long the actual drawing to the screen was taking? I know that profiling tools will show time spent within [pre-render] and [render], but I wonder if there is some thing that could be done inside my own code. In particular, I am trying to figure out where time is being spent. I suspect that it is not in rendering - but I would like to confirm that. Thanks. -Eric --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com, Gordon Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Btw, is there any way to inspect the graphics object to see the drawing commands that it has? Unfortunately, no. Gordon Smith Adobe Flex SDK Team From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Eric Cooper Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 1:47 PM To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com Subject: [flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance Thanks. Yes, that one got me when I first started -- and took me a few days to realize what was happening. Btw, is there any way to inspect the graphics object to see the drawing commands that it has? --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com , Alex Harui aharui@ wrote: Also make sure you are calling graphics.clear() before re-drawing all of your graphic commands.
Re: [flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance
You could use the getTimer() function. (It's a function of the flash.utils package: http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/201/langref/flash/utils/package.html). However, that will only tell you the execution time of the code. I've had issues with the graphics object where the time it takes to run the code is shorter than the time it takes the player to render those instructions. If that happens it'll probably be pretty obvious if what's going on. - Daniel Freiman On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 2:54 AM, Eric Cooper [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there a way to clock exactly how long the actual drawing to the screen was taking? I know that profiling tools will show time spent within [pre-render] and [render], but I wonder if there is some thing that could be done inside my own code. In particular, I am trying to figure out where time is being spent. I suspect that it is not in rendering - but I would like to confirm that. Thanks. -Eric --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com, Gordon Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Btw, is there any way to inspect the graphics object to see the drawing commands that it has? Unfortunately, no. Gordon Smith Adobe Flex SDK Team From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com [mailto: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Eric Cooper Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 1:47 PM To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com Subject: [flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance Thanks. Yes, that one got me when I first started -- and took me a few days to realize what was happening. Btw, is there any way to inspect the graphics object to see the drawing commands that it has? --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com flexcoders%40yahoogroups.commailto: flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com flexcoders%2540yahoogroups.com , Alex Harui aharui@ wrote: Also make sure you are calling graphics.clear() before re-drawing all of your graphic commands.
[flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance
I am experiencing performance issues similar to those described in this thread. By way of background, I am working on a geometry tool that allows the user to create points, line segments, circles and polygons, to move then about and to create constraints between them. I am new to ActionScript/Flex/Flash and, perhaps, tainted by other languages/frameworks. So, I have subclasses Canvas and it is responsible of rendering all the geometric shapes. In other words, my geometric shapes do extend DisplayObject and are *not* in the display list. As I add more and more shapes (i.e., more than 10), I see that drag performance degrades rapidly. I am considering adopting Alex's suggestion: generating a bitmap at the start of a drag (such that the bitmap contains all shapes that are not about to be dragged), clearing the graphics object, blitting the bitmap and then drawing the object(s) being dragged. I am wondering, though, if I would get this for free if I used DisplayObject and the built- in drag events. I am also wondering, if I am saving that much in terms of memory and speed, by rolling my own as it were. Thanks, -Eric --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com, Alex Harui [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It will help some, but you'll still end up with 500,000 vectors spread thorough 1000 overlaid shapes. In order to handle undo, you would track the vectors in your own array of points and take snapshots as I suggested. I wouldn't even encode as png, all you need is one extra bitmapdata.
Re: [flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance
On Tuesday 15 Apr 2008, Eric Cooper wrote: I am wondering, though, if I would get this for free if I used DisplayObject and the built- in drag events. I am also wondering, if I am saving that much in terms of memory and speed, by rolling my own as it were. I would definetaly use Adobe's to start with, then until or unless some problem actually appeared. -- Tom Chiverton Helping to continually aggregate leading-edge infrastructures on: http://thefalken.livejournal.com This email is sent for and on behalf of Halliwells LLP. Halliwells LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales under registered number OC307980 whose registered office address is at Halliwells LLP, 3 Hardman Square, Spinningfields, Manchester, M3 3EB. A list of members is available for inspection at the registered office. Any reference to a partner in relation to Halliwells LLP means a member of Halliwells LLP. Regulated by The Solicitors Regulation Authority. CONFIDENTIALITY This email is intended only for the use of the addressee named above and may be confidential or legally privileged. If you are not the addressee you must not read it and must not use any information contained in nor copy it nor inform any person other than Halliwells LLP or the addressee of its existence or contents. If you have received this email in error please delete it and notify Halliwells LLP IT Department on 0870 365 2500. For more information about Halliwells LLP visit www.halliwells.com. -- Flexcoders Mailing List FAQ: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/files/flexcodersFAQ.txt Search Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexcoders%40yahoogroups.comYahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/ * Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional * To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/join (Yahoo! ID required) * To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance
I am wondering, though, if I would get this for free if I used DisplayObject and the built- in drag events. I am also wondering, if I am saving that much in terms of memory and speed, by rolling my own as it were. If you make each draggable item (each shape) its own DisplayObject then yes, you'll get some optimizations for free, such as bitmap caching. You'll also get the benefit of the fact that the drawing loop is at least written in native code (the display list), and may even have some additional optimizations helping you depending on your specific dataset (dirty rectangle lists, etc.). Finally, by making each object a DisplayObject instead of managing the shapes yourself, you get a huge amount of features for free, such as alpha, filters, sort order, scaling, rotation... all those nice, native things DisplayObjects do. Troy.
Re: [flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance
On Apr 15, 2008, at 12:23 AM, Eric Cooper wrote: I am wondering, though, if I would get this for free if I used DisplayObject and the built- in drag events. I am also wondering, if I am saving that much in terms of memory and speed, by rolling my own as it were. My personal choice was not to use any of the built-in drag event stuff for this. I created my own handler for clicking and 'selecting' or initiating a drag or other transform on a display object using transformation matrices. Objects extend some base classes that implement an interface containing a setTransformation method. Each object can then override the capabilities of the transformation that is being applied (as a matrix parameter). I find it pretty weird you run into issues with more than 10 display objects. I would imaging you'd have issues with a few hundred or thousand, but not low single digits. If you get to really complex vector shapes dragging can slow down quickly because the renderer has to deal with visibility and compositing of that complex shape. Bitmap representations here are much more efficient, using cacheAsBitmap=true (gotta extend movieclip) and have your class that contains the graphics automatically handle the drawing of the bitmap into itself. I do this with text because animating or moving type in a layered 'canvas' has performance and display issues. My 0.02. cheers, jon
RE: [flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance
Also make sure you are calling graphics.clear() before re-drawing all of your graphic commands. From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Eric Cooper Sent: Monday, April 14, 2008 9:23 PM To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com Subject: [flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance I am experiencing performance issues similar to those described in this thread. By way of background, I am working on a geometry tool that allows the user to create points, line segments, circles and polygons, to move then about and to create constraints between them. I am new to ActionScript/Flex/Flash and, perhaps, tainted by other languages/frameworks. So, I have subclasses Canvas and it is responsible of rendering all the geometric shapes. In other words, my geometric shapes do extend DisplayObject and are *not* in the display list. As I add more and more shapes (i.e., more than 10), I see that drag performance degrades rapidly. I am considering adopting Alex's suggestion: generating a bitmap at the start of a drag (such that the bitmap contains all shapes that are not about to be dragged), clearing the graphics object, blitting the bitmap and then drawing the object(s) being dragged. I am wondering, though, if I would get this for free if I used DisplayObject and the built- in drag events. I am also wondering, if I am saving that much in terms of memory and speed, by rolling my own as it were. Thanks, -Eric --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com , Alex Harui [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It will help some, but you'll still end up with 500,000 vectors spread thorough 1000 overlaid shapes. In order to handle undo, you would track the vectors in your own array of points and take snapshots as I suggested. I wouldn't even encode as png, all you need is one extra bitmapdata.
[flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance
Thanks. Yes, that one got me when I first started -- and took me a few days to realize what was happening. Btw, is there any way to inspect the graphics object to see the drawing commands that it has? --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com, Alex Harui [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Also make sure you are calling graphics.clear() before re-drawing all of your graphic commands.
[flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance
Thank, Tom. Perhaps I should have started by extending DisplayObject. At this point, that would be a bit of a slog. I may end up resorting to that, but would like to try other avenues first. --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com, Tom Chiverton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tuesday 15 Apr 2008, Eric Cooper wrote: I am wondering, though, if I would get this for free if I used DisplayObject and the built- in drag events. I am also wondering, if I am saving that much in terms of memory and speed, by rolling my own as it were. I would definetaly use Adobe's to start with, then until or unless some problem actually appeared. -- Tom Chiverton Helping to continually aggregate leading-edge infrastructures on: http://thefalken.livejournal.com
RE: [flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance
Btw, is there any way to inspect the graphics object to see the drawing commands that it has? Unfortunately, no. Gordon Smith Adobe Flex SDK Team From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Eric Cooper Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 1:47 PM To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com Subject: [flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance Thanks. Yes, that one got me when I first started -- and took me a few days to realize what was happening. Btw, is there any way to inspect the graphics object to see the drawing commands that it has? --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com , Alex Harui [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Also make sure you are calling graphics.clear() before re-drawing all of your graphic commands.
[flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance
Thanks, Troy. I am using alpha currently, and think that I will be able to use various matrix manipulations when I get there. I am drawing to a Canvas. I think that I will be exploring bitmap caching shortly. But if it starts looking like I will need to manage my own dirty rectangles then I will spend some time extending DisplayObject. -Eric --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com, Troy Gilbert [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am wondering, though, if I would get this for free if I used DisplayObject and the built- in drag events. I am also wondering, if I am saving that much in terms of memory and speed, by rolling my own as it were. If you make each draggable item (each shape) its own DisplayObject then yes, you'll get some optimizations for free, such as bitmap caching. You'll also get the benefit of the fact that the drawing loop is at least written in native code (the display list), and may even have some additional optimizations helping you depending on your specific dataset (dirty rectangle lists, etc.). Finally, by making each object a DisplayObject instead of managing the shapes yourself, you get a huge amount of features for free, such as alpha, filters, sort order, scaling, rotation... all those nice, native things DisplayObjects do. Troy.
[flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance
John, This is helpful. I am not dealing with complex polygons. Rather, I am dealing with triangles and quadrilaterals. I am calling out to a C++ server that includes code that helps maintain constraints within and between my polygons (e.g., perpendicular, concentric, congruence, etc.). This means that every moveBy call on a polygon gets sent to the server and the server sends back a list of points that have changed position. I suspect that much of my slowness is a result of the drawing taking a bit longer than the network roundtrip - with the result that a backlog of point updates builds up. I wonder, though, if caching bitmaps for each polygon would speed things up. I don't think that I can get away with creating a single bitmap of non-dragged polygons because there is a potential for interaction between dragged and non- dragged objects (that's one way that constraints can be made, albeit with modifier key). Thanks. -Eric --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com, Jon Bradley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 15, 2008, at 12:23 AM, Eric Cooper wrote: I am wondering, though, if I would get this for free if I used DisplayObject and the built- in drag events. I am also wondering, if I am saving that much in terms of memory and speed, by rolling my own as it were. My personal choice was not to use any of the built-in drag event stuff for this. I created my own handler for clicking and 'selecting' or initiating a drag or other transform on a display object using transformation matrices. Objects extend some base classes that implement an interface containing a setTransformation method. Each object can then override the capabilities of the transformation that is being applied (as a matrix parameter). I find it pretty weird you run into issues with more than 10 display objects. I would imaging you'd have issues with a few hundred or thousand, but not low single digits. If you get to really complex vector shapes dragging can slow down quickly because the renderer has to deal with visibility and compositing of that complex shape. Bitmap representations here are much more efficient, using cacheAsBitmap=true (gotta extend movieclip) and have your class that contains the graphics automatically handle the drawing of the bitmap into itself. I do this with text because animating or moving type in a layered 'canvas' has performance and display issues. My 0.02. cheers, jon
[flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance
Thanks Alex, Are you suggesting I choose a point in time, for instance, when 500 vectors are drawn, then convert them, encode as png file, overlay as another child image, clear the graphics object and let user continue scribbling on newly cleared graphics object?. I was planning on doing something similar, based on user control, such that they could record layers of annotations but it would work as a background automation too, although then I have to worry about combining the automatically generated images (not suggested by user) to create the annotation layer that they have requested. --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com, Alex Harui [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Flash/AIR are vector display list renderers. If you give it tons of vectors to display, it will take a while to render them. This is quite different from bitmap renderers like Windows. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. If I were writing such an app, I would probably take a snapshot every once in a while and draw on top of the recent snapshot. From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of dannyvenier Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2008 7:19 PM To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com Subject: [flexcoders] graphics object seems to degrade performance Hi, I'm writing an AIR app that uses a scribble type component. In a nutshell, just uses the graphics lineTo() method to draw a line from the current location to the new position of the mouse on a mouse move event. I have noticed that after scribbling for a bit (maybe 30 seconds), the mouse movement tracking is impaired and my scribbling which once resembled smooth circles, starts to look like octagons, hexagons, pentagons...eventually trianglesyou get the picture. The frequency which the application picks up the move events is reduced so the smooth tracking turns to noticable lines. The graphics object appears to be bogging down the application and mouse event frequency as the number of lines in the graphics object increases. It doesn't take long to degrade. I tried out the flex profiler and didn't show any significant growth in memory over this scribble period. I tried a scrible application from Andy Rayne's scribble board http://weblogs.macromedia.com/arayne/ http://weblogs.macromedia.com/arayne/ and it behaves exactly the same way. There is no scaling, zooming or manipulation of the graphics lines at all. I'm assuming they're just pushing points onto an array but haven't looked into the source to confirm how this type of class behaves. Has anyone experienced this kind of degradation with a graphics object and if so, have you figured out what's going on?
Re: [flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance
Are you suggesting I choose a point in time, for instance, when 500 vectors are drawn, then convert them, encode as png file, overlay as another child image, clear the graphics object and let user continue scribbling on newly cleared graphics object?. Reading through this thread reminded me of a similar performance issue I encountered. I have a component that allows the user to erase parts of image. I originally implemented this by creating a mask for the bitmap and drawing on the mask to erase. I ran into the same problem: the more the user erased, the slower the app got. I eventually switched to using a bitmap as the mask, but I lost my nice soft brushes and easy, smooth resizing that the vectors gave me. In thinking about Alex's suggestion I had a thought (that would help you as well). Instead of baking your lines to a bitmap, creating a new shape and drawing on that, then baking that into your bitmap, repeat... which has the problem of losing your vectors... could you keep an array (or rather, a stack) of shape layers, and as the user draws a certain amount of vectors on that shape (like you said, 500 lines or such), you push another shape layer on the stack and set the previous shape layer cacheAsBitmap to true. You'd then get the performance boost of the bitmap without losing the fidelity of your vectors. When the user is ready to finalize their drawing, you just start at the bottom of the stack and draw the shapes into a bitmap at whatever is the desired final resolution (scaling it up or down as needed). That should be an excellent trade-off... the only drawback would be if you were using the vector renderer to draw things that interact with existing vectors, i.e. using fills with intersections, etc. Troy.
RE: [flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance
It will help some, but you'll still end up with 500,000 vectors spread thorough 1000 overlaid shapes. In order to handle undo, you would track the vectors in your own array of points and take snapshots as I suggested. I wouldn't even encode as png, all you need is one extra bitmapdata. From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Troy Gilbert Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 10:36 AM To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [flexcoders] Re: graphics object seems to degrade performance Are you suggesting I choose a point in time, for instance, when 500 vectors are drawn, then convert them, encode as png file, overlay as another child image, clear the graphics object and let user continue scribbling on newly cleared graphics object?. Reading through this thread reminded me of a similar performance issue I encountered. I have a component that allows the user to erase parts of image. I originally implemented this by creating a mask for the bitmap and drawing on the mask to erase. I ran into the same problem: the more the user erased, the slower the app got. I eventually switched to using a bitmap as the mask, but I lost my nice soft brushes and easy, smooth resizing that the vectors gave me. In thinking about Alex's suggestion I had a thought (that would help you as well). Instead of baking your lines to a bitmap, creating a new shape and drawing on that, then baking that into your bitmap, repeat... which has the problem of losing your vectors... could you keep an array (or rather, a stack) of shape layers, and as the user draws a certain amount of vectors on that shape (like you said, 500 lines or such), you push another shape layer on the stack and set the previous shape layer cacheAsBitmap to true. You'd then get the performance boost of the bitmap without losing the fidelity of your vectors. When the user is ready to finalize their drawing, you just start at the bottom of the stack and draw the shapes into a bitmap at whatever is the desired final resolution (scaling it up or down as needed). That should be an excellent trade-off... the only drawback would be if you were using the vector renderer to draw things that interact with existing vectors, i.e. using fills with intersections, etc. Troy.
