Re: gEDA-dev: Faster PCB + GL

[Kai-Martin Knaak <kmk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 22 Jun 2008 10:27:16 +0100, Peter Clifton wrote:

> patch -p0 --dry-run < pcb_faster_gl.diff
> 
> If it works, take out the --dry-run and repeat.

Got it working :-)
(after the usual fight with munged line breaks and omitted leading 
spaces). Some notes:

* On my moderate, but OpenGL enabled hardware there is a serious speed 
improvement compared to the current CVS version. A benchmark of my 
current layout yields about 35 redraws per second (rps) at a typical zoom 
level for manual routing. Polygons were set to thin-draw. Regular pcb 
does 12 rps with the same view parameters. When zoomed all out I get 12 
rps with GL and 7 rps without. 
With full polygons turned on the redraw rate goes down. But as announced 
by Peter, it is a lot better than regular pcb. With GL it is still at 9 
rps while the performance of regular pcb drops to 2 redraws per second.

My hardware is a celeron 3000 board with a nvidia FX-5200 graphics card. 
I installed the nvidia card specifically because I need OpenGL to get 
decent environment for 3D mechanical CAD. However, this is not a state of 
the art super gaming card, but a no fan, 128 MB product, which cost me 
about 25 EUR.  

* There seems to be an issue with update events connected to gnome 
actions. If I have the locate pointer option enabled in gnome 
(desktop - gnome - peripherals - mouse - locate_pointer)
the pcb window blanks on pres of [control]. Also, there is no update 
during window panning.

* Currently, tracks on the same copper layer add their alpha channel. 
This results in more saturated areas where track segments meet. This 
might be useful when looking for tracklets. But during regular routing it 
just adds to graphical kludge. IMHO, it is better to regard the whole 
track as a single object and don't do transparency between segments.

I hope, this effort will result in a regular pcb version with OpenGL 
enabled. Transparency and speed are significant improvements of usability 
with complex boards.

---<(kaimartin)>---
-- 
Kai-Martin Knaak
http://lilalaser.de/blog



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