Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
> Op 01/10/2020 om 23:40 schreef Kenneth:

> > One trick that I learned long ago was to pre-#declare image_map pigments, when
> > they are going to be used repeatedly in a scene. That saves a whopping
> > amount of memory usage later.
> >
>
> Yes sir. You probably learned this the hard way, like I did. ;-)
>

Indeed! I probably stumbled onto the idea purely by mistake, ha.

I've also experimented with trying to use a #macro to do the same thing.
Like...
#macro _MY_IMG_MACRO() // to create it
pigment{image_map{png "my_image.png" interpolate 2}}
#end

then...
#for(i,1,1000)
box{0,1
MY_IMG_MACRO() // the pigment-- but no pigment identifier needed here
translate ...
}
#end

Alas, the macro does not 'pre-#declare' the image_map in a similar way, or save
on memory usage. I remember, from several years ago, that Clipka added some
'caching' abilities to macro use, in one of the v3.8xx development releases; I
guess an image_map was not part of that scheme... or that the macro just caches
the text of the pigment specification, not the image itself? (I make no claim of
understanding the behind-the-scenes workings of a macro!)

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