Optimizing displaypipeline performance

Grasshopper
1

Hi, i’am cutomizing ghpython components preview geometry overriding DrawViewportWires() methods. As used @piac in this example

I’am previewing lines, points, meshes and texts using displayPipeline methods available.

I found that when drawing massive quantity of elements, methods like DrawLines() or DrawPoints() are particularly efficient, but with other methods i.e. DrawText() since it takes one element on each call, I need to iterate thousands of time inside DrawVieportWires() what results in a poor navigation performance.

   def DrawViewportWires(self,args):
        MAX_MESH = 500
        MAX_TEXT = 500
        POINT_SIZE = 5
        TEXT_COLOR = System.Drawing.Color.Black
        POINT_STYLE = Rhino.Display.PointStyle.RoundSimple
        #try:
        i = 0
        for value in sorted(self.byValueDict.keys()):
            color = self.colors[i]
            args.Display.DrawPoints(self.byValueDict[value]['points'],POINT_STYLE,POINT_SIZE,color)
            t=0
            if self.showValue:
                for pos in self.byValueDict[value]['textPos']: # this iteration slows performance 
                                                               # even with values as low as t=500
                    if t<MAX_TEXT:
                        args.Display.Draw2dText(str(value),self.colors[i],pos,True,12,"Arial")
                        t += 1
            q = 0
            if self.showMesh:
                for mesh in self.byValueDict[value]['mesh']:
                   if q<MAX_MESH:
                        args.Display.DrawMeshShaded(mesh,Rhino.Display.DisplayMaterial(color))
                        q += 1
            i +=1

I have tried to take off from DrawViewportWires() as much operations as possible, but I cant figure out how to optimize this further: the iteration that still remains inside seems to be unavoidable.

Am I making a bad use of DrawViewportWires()? How does grasshopper components achieve much better results when previewing geometry? Can I expect to have such a good performance (somehow) using python?

thanks

3

Please try SR9 RC1 that was just released. We made some text drawing optimizations that may help in your case.

4

thanks steve, I’ll check it on Monday in my script.

5

Hi @stevebaer , I’am not noticing sensible differences on performance. Nonetheless, I got realize that I’am displaying excesive information on screen (5000 Draw2DText call per frame), wich makes not sense, it’s too much info. I have implemented an clipping box to reduce displayed info focalizing the area to analyze, so now I have a reasonable refreshrate but still displaying enough info to be useful.

By the other hand, I was drawing meshes from DrawViewportWires(), and the performance was not so good as the rest of grasshopper components that preview meshes. then I got realized that there is this DrawViewportMeshes() which previews mesh geometry apparently as fast as expected. (well, not as good, but its ok…)

Thanks
aitor