Re: [PyOpenGL-Devel] Display lists 30 times faster than VBOs ?

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Thank you for your replies. Interestingly I tried to do the same with
simulated random lines and the display lists have the same performance with
the vbos. It's only when I try with the real datasets that I get this
problem I am not sure why yet. The function calls take indeed some time but
not much. I need to play with them a bit more though.

On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 9:13 AM, Mathieu Virbel <ti...@ba...> wrote:

> At least, remove all dot call in the loop.
> http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonSpeed/PerformanceTips#Avoidingdots...
> Also, you can cache self.vbo+12, it create a new object each call.
>
> But even that, i doubt you'll gain as much as display list.
>
> * enrike <al...@gm...> [2010-06-30 05:09:42]:
>
> > just an idea.... the bottleneck could be in python and not in opengl,
> > remember that function call is expensive in python
> >
> > az., 2010.eko ekaren 30a 01:33(e)an, Eleftherios Garyfallidis(e)k idatzi
> > zuen:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > We are trying to visualize some quite big brain white matter datasets
> > > with PyOpenGL. We have around a quarter of a million of trajectories
> > > where each trajectory consists of up to around 100 line segments. The
> > > goal application is to be able to pick/select and update some or all of
> > > the trajectories in real time in order to help practitioners find their
> > > way through the brain. We had quite a good progress selecting and
> > > picking trajectories using gluUnProject however we are not sure which
> > > design direction we should take from now on as far as vbos are
> > > concernced. According to the Red Book and the community blogs vertex
> > > buffer objects should be more preferable than display lists now and in
> > > the future and display lists have already being tagged as deprecated.
> We
> > > would very much like your thoughts and feedback about this.
> > >
> > > We are testing this software on a Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 and use
> > > PyOpenGL 3.0.1
> > >
> > > The following class shows what we tried to do. The input of the class
> as
> > > shown in __init__() is data which is a list of trajectories where every
> > > trajectory is represented by numpy arrays of shape (N,3) , colors is
> the
> > > similar but a list of arrays of shape (N,4) (where N is different from
> > > trajectory to trajectory) and if the lists parameter is True then we
> use
> > > display lists with vbo eitherwise we use vbos only.
> > >
> > > Surprisingly, when using lists=True we get more than 30fps and when
> > > lists=False we get between 1-2 fps. Any ideas what is the reason for
> > > this dramatic change? Shouldn't vbos be the same or faster than dls?
> > >
> > > class Tracks():
> > >
> > >      def __init__(self,data,colors,line_width=3.,lists=False):
> > >
> > >          Actor.__init__(self)
> > >
> > >          self.data=data
> > >          self.cdata=None
> > >          self.colors=colors
> > >          self.line_width=line_width
> > >          self.list_index = None
> > >          self.vbo = None
> > >          self.lists = lists
> > >
> > >      def init(self):
> > >          self.init_default()
> > >
> > >      def init_default(self):
> > >
> > >          self.counts=[len(d) for d in self.data]
> > >          cdata=np.concatenate(self.data)
> > >          first=np.array(self.counts).cumsum()
> > >          self.first=list(np.hstack((np.array([0]),first[:-1])))
> > >          ccolors=np.concatenate(self.colors)
> > >          self.min=np.min(cdata,axis=0)
> > >          self.max=np.max(cdata,axis=0)
> > >          self.mean=np.mean(cdata,axis=0)
> > >          cdata = cdata - self.mean
> > >          self.cdata = cdata
> > >
> > >          stack=np.hstack((cdata,ccolors))
> > >          stack=stack.astype('float32')
> > >          self.vbo = vbo.VBO(stack,usage='GL_STATIC_DRAW')
> > >          #self.vbo =
> > > vbo.VBO(np.hstack((cdata,ccolors)),usage=gl.GL_DYNAMIC_DRAW)
> > >
> > >          if self.lists:
> > >
> > >              self.list_index = gl.glGenLists(1)
> > >              gl.glNewList( self.list_index,gl.GL_COMPILE)
> > >              self._execute_vbos()
> > >              gl.glEndList()
> > >
> > >
> > >      def _execute_vbos(self):
> > >
> > >          gl.glDisable(gl.GL_LIGHTING)
> > >          gl.glDisable(gl.GL_DEPTH_TEST)
> > >          gl.glEnable(gl.GL_BLEND)
> > >          gl.glBlendFunc(gl.GL_SRC_ALPHA,gl.GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA)
> > >          gl.glLineWidth(self.line_width)
> > >
> > >          self.vbo.bind()
> > >          try:
> > >              gl.glEnableClientState(gl.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY)
> > >              gl.glEnableClientState(gl.GL_COLOR_ARRAY)
> > >              #gl.glVertexPointerf(cdata)
> > >              gl.glVertexPointer(3, gl.GL_FLOAT, 28, self.vbo )
> > >              gl.glColorPointer(4, gl.GL_FLOAT, 28, self.vbo+12 )
> > >              gl.glMultiDrawArrays(gl.GL_LINE_STRIP,\
> > >
> self.first,self.counts,len(self.counts))
> > >          finally:
> > >              self.vbo.unbind()
> > >
> > >          gl.glDisableClientState(gl.GL_COLOR_ARRAY)
> > >          gl.glDisableClientState(gl.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY)
> > >          gl.glDisable(gl.GL_BLEND)
> > >          gl.glEnable(gl.GL_LIGHTING)
> > >          gl.glEnable(gl.GL_DEPTH_TEST)
> > >
> > >
> > >      def display(self):
> > >
> > >          gl.glPushMatrix()
> > >          x,y,z = self.position
> > >          gl.glTranslatef(x,y,z)
> > >
> > >          if self.lists:
> > >              gl.glCallList(self.list_index)
> > >          else:
> > >              self._execute_vbos()
> > >
> > >          gl.glPopMatrix()
> > >
> > >
> > > The Tracks.display function is called from glutDisplayFunc from another
> > > file after the object has been initialized using the init function.  We
> > > would be very happy to hear about your ideas to make this visualization
> > > better and ideas about how to update the datasets using the vbo from
> > > OpenGL.arrays or a different method in a nice efficient way.
> > >
> > > We would be more than happy to continue using PyOpenGL and contribute
> to
> > > the list in the future. PyOpenGL fits very well with a new project we
> > > have created found at nipy.org/dipy <http://nipy.org/dipy> .We are
> more
> > > than eager at the moment to switch from python-vtk or mayavi to
> pyopengl
> > > for all our visualization needs as we think that it can deal better
> with
> > > big datasets.
> > >
> > > Best wishes,
> > > Eleftherios & Ian
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
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