I have been working on a rather large scene for the past year (I don't
often have time to work on it).  It consists of thousands of objects,
many of which are CSGs (the newest objects are).  Most of them are
duplicated with references many times.  I thankfully broke the scene up
into the various pieces at the beginning so that not everything is in
one large file.  Rather there are several files each with a complex
object in them.  I combine the pieces together into a single larger
scene for renders.

My problem is that the various scenes have become slow on the redraw due
to the large number of lines.  What can I do to optimize the preformance
of Moray?  If I were to do a hardware upgrade, what would help Moray the
most?  Below is a system description:

PII 266
64 Meg RAM
STB Powergraph 64V+  (S3 chip) with 2 meg VRAM

I realize that a faster processor would help POV-Ray, but right now I'm
more concerned with speeding up Moray.  Any suggestions are greatly
appreciated.

Nathan

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Nathan J. Smith <njs### [at] ilstuedu> wrote:
: My problem is that the various scenes have become slow on the redraw due
: to the large number of lines.

  I think that you can set visibility levels for objects. This way you can
control what is drawn and what's not. Big objects which are made of many
little objects can be set up so that only a some of the biggest components
are drawn but not the little ones.

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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Hi Nathan J. Smith, you recently wrote in moray.win:

> My problem is that the various scenes have become slow on the redraw due
> to the large number of lines.  What can I do to optimize the preformance
> of Moray?  
The two redraw numbers on View->Configuration->Advanced are the key to
getting Moray's redraw going optimally on your system.

To optimize the redraw do this (use Alt-O, Ctrl-Shift-Tab to get to
the dialog):

-Set the "Minimum number of lines to draw before refreshing" setting
and the "Maximum number of lines to draw before refreshing" setting to
the same number (say 4000).

- Click OK and zoom and pan a 2D viewport.

- If it feels snappy go back and increase the numbers by 1000. Ignore
the total redraw time. Repeat until .....

- You will notice that at some point the view will start lagging
behind the mouse movements. You want to find a point where this is not
quite noticeable to you.

- Now increase the "Maximum...." number to control the total redraw
time for the scene. For example, try setting it to 100000. You will
see that the view is still responsive while panning and zooming, but
once you stop panning and hold the mouse still, the redraw finishes in
very few "steps". If you move the mouse during the redraws there will
be a lot more steps.

The way that it works is that Moray draws the minimum lines into an
off-screen buffer and will then show that buffer on the screen (that's
what the "Minimum" number controls). After that Moray will check to
see whether you are moving the mouse and if you aren't it will draw
the "Maximum" number of lines to the off-screen buffer and will then
show that. If you move the mouse, only the "Minimum" amount is drawn.
While attempting to draw the "Maximum" amount, Moray will check the
mouse every "Minimum" lines.


> If I were to do a hardware upgrade, what would help Moray the
> most?  
Processor speed and memory will help most. Moray does not use any
hardware acceleration that a graphics card might offer.
 
> STB Powergraph 64V+  (S3 chip) with 2 meg VRAM
I think this might be a bit old (not sure).

I have my settings at 10000 and 100000. My benchmark scene has 241300
edges and it redraws a single view in about a second (PII/266, 128MB)
and all four views in about 4 seconds if I keep the mouse still and 6
seconds if I move it. 

- Lutz
  email : lut### [at] stmuccom
  Web   : http://www.stmuc.com/moray

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