POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.general : Is the mesh camera releasing its mesh RAM? : Is the mesh camera releasing its mesh RAM? Server Time
18 Apr 2024 05:31:06 EDT (-0400)
  Is the mesh camera releasing its mesh RAM?  
From: Kenneth
Date: 14 May 2023 04:15:00
Message: <web.6460979524fff91d9b4924336e066e29@news.povray.org>
[Windows 10, official 3.8.0 beta 1]

While playing with several of the mesh camera's included demo files...
     meshcam_persp_demo.pov
     meshcam_stereo_demo.pov

...I've noticed something odd about the memory usage.

At the bottom of POV-ray's Windows GUI is a running tally of the ram memory(?)
being used for a scene. Usually, once a scene is parsed and rendered, that value
drops back to the 'base' value. (Mine is about 22MB; I have a lot of scene files
open.)

But if I start one of the demo files and then *stop* the process during the
parsing stage, the 'used memory' remains at a certain high value, instead of
dropping back to the base. If I repeat this process several times, the used
memory keeps climbing. If I then run the demo to completion, *its* used memory
is successfully cleared-- but only back to the previously-set high value.

At this point, I tried switching to a completely different scene (no mesh
camera) that also happens to have a rather large mesh2 object in it (the
Stanford 'Lucy' winged statue.) This scene has no such problems, even if I stop
the parsing mid-stage. But the previously-high 'used memory' value -- which is
now the 'base'-- is still there, from the mesh camera use.

Unless the Windows GUI is reporting a false value, it would seem that the mesh
camera could conceivably run out of ram memory, in certain situations. The only
way to empty the memory is to quit POV-ray and restart.

Try running one of the demo scenes at 1280X960 (a purposely slow-to-parse
setting), then halt it while parsing.


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