[vtk-developers] IRC Chat 6/4/2002

Tue Jun 4 11:49:15 EDT 2002

**** BEGIN LOGGING AT Tue Jun  4 10:11:34 2002

Jun 04 10:11:34 -->	You are now talking on #vtk
Jun 04 10:11:34 ---	Topic for #vtk is Performance of VTK, depeication strategy, naming convention
Jun 04 10:11:34 ---	Topic for #vtk set by legoandy at Tue Jun  4 09:37:17
Jun 04 10:12:15 <legoandy>	hello
Jun 04 10:12:22 <KenMartin>	There are a few issues I iknow of
Jun 04 10:12:26 <SebastienB>	prabhu: can you please log the session ?
Jun 04 10:12:28 <KenMartin>	1) status of coverage
Jun 04 10:12:36 <KenMartin>	2) prabhu method names
Jun 04 10:12:44 <KenMartin>	3) performance
Jun 04 10:12:46 <prabhu>	SebastienB: well, I might not be around all the time.
Jun 04 10:12:47 <KenMartin>	4) that all
Jun 04 10:13:02 <Bigguy>	seems like enough
Jun 04 10:13:08 <KenMartin>	Why don't we hit 1 first (coverage status)  
Jun 04 10:13:40 <KenMartin>	I deprecated the point locator 2D classes and will remove them in the future
Jun 04 10:14:07 <KenMartin>	any luck on getting help Bill?
Jun 04 10:14:09 <legoandy>	I did vtkXMLParser and vtkString. With Brad we will make coverage of vtkXMLParser even better...
Jun 04 10:14:15 <KenMartin>	great
Jun 04 10:14:19 <Bigguy>	i sent out the list.
Jun 04 10:14:25 <Bigguy>	been nipoping away at it
Jun 04 10:14:35 <KenMartin>	I think Lisa has been working on it some
Jun 04 10:15:00 <Bigguy>	i'll generate a new list
Jun 04 10:15:10 <KenMartin>	feel free BIll to send out reminders etc
Jun 04 10:15:10 <Bigguy>	found a bad one today.
Jun 04 10:15:20 <Bigguy>	imagereader2
Jun 04 10:15:27 <berk>	I haven't done my homework yet... hopefully this week
Jun 04 10:15:35 -->	cdna (~chatzilla at ip19.CdNorthAmerica.COM) has joined #vtk
Jun 04 10:15:38 <Bigguy>	can't read filedimensionality 2
Jun 04 10:15:46 <KenMartin>	minor issue
Jun 04 10:15:48 <Bigguy>	never been tested
Jun 04 10:15:52 <Bigguy>	i'll look into it
Jun 04 10:16:30 <KenMartin>	OK, so we will all keep working on coverage, other issues on coverage?
Jun 04 10:16:37 <legoandy>	(something related but I guess for next time: lot's of unused classes)
Jun 04 10:16:58 <legoandy>	(for example: vtkProcessStatistics)
Jun 04 10:17:08 <legoandy>	(not even in CMakeLists.txt)
Jun 04 10:17:16 <Bigguy>	left over from old testing days... lisa's
Jun 04 10:17:31 <legoandy>	Can I throw it out?
Jun 04 10:17:39 <legoandy>	What about others?
Jun 04 10:17:41 <Bigguy>	ask lisa
Jun 04 10:18:15 <prabhu>	Maybe make a list of unused classes and post on the list?
Jun 04 10:19:00 <SebastienB>	ok then, let's move to 2) prabhu method names
Jun 04 10:19:16 <SebastienB>	what is it all about ?
Jun 04 10:19:41 <legoandy>	There are some classes with inconsistent naming
Jun 04 10:19:48 <legoandy>	(method naming)
Jun 04 10:19:59 <hoffman>	what about John B. vtkNovelty post?  I guess he wanted to move obscure classes to one library...
Jun 04 10:21:44 <prabhu>	yes, comments?
Jun 04 10:21:45 <--	cdna has quit (Remote closed the connection)
Jun 04 10:22:12 <prabhu>	more specifically some classes dont have the right SetVariableToState
Jun 04 10:22:21 <SebastienB>	Well I guess the name could be made more consistent, as long as the usual legacy thingy is used correctly (i.e. #ifndef VTK_REMOVE_LEGACY_CODE, VTK_LEGACY_METHOD, etc.) ? Although I do not even know if they should be deprecated
Jun 04 10:22:22 <legoandy>	Do you have a list?
Jun 04 10:22:23 <KenMartin>	From prabhu's email it seems that there were just a few cases
Jun 04 10:22:36 <prabhu>	Also, it is possible that subtle errors were not found by my tests
Jun 04 10:22:39 <prabhu>	yes
Jun 04 10:22:49 <prabhu>	only 2 or three classes.
Jun 04 10:22:53 <KenMartin>	Maybe you (prabhu) could add those methods to the couple classes
Jun 04 10:23:04 <prabhu>	I'll dig up my old mail.
Jun 04 10:23:10 <prabhu>	Ok. i'll do that
Jun 04 10:23:14 <KenMartin>	Thanks
Jun 04 10:23:20 <prabhu>	but I did have questions
Jun 04 10:23:26 <KenMartin>	OK
Jun 04 10:23:33 <prabhu>	There is only one class where i know what to do
Jun 04 10:23:43 <prabhu>	the others have things that I'm not too sure about.
Jun 04 10:23:52 <SebastienB>	Should the old ones be depracted (I'm asking since I added GetNumberOfPropsRenderedAsGeometry back t vtkRenderer recently)
Jun 04 10:24:03 <prabhu>	vtkExtractTensorComponents is easy to fix and I'll know what I am doing.
Jun 04 10:24:06 <prabhu>	one sec.
Jun 04 10:24:45 <prabhu>	http://public.kitware.com/pipermail/vtk-developers/2002-June/001586.html
Jun 04 10:24:53 <KenMartin>	Deprecating the old ones is an issue of how bad they are, how much they are used etc
Jun 04 10:24:58 <prabhu>	That is my post for those of you who are interested.
Jun 04 10:25:24 <KenMartin>	Contact the author (opr recent changer) of the classes in question to get resolution
Jun 04 10:25:39 <KenMartin>	They will know best how to handle those methods
Jun 04 10:25:58 <prabhu>	Comments on vtkHyperStreamline, vtkVRMLImporter vtkPolyDataConnectivityFilter?
Jun 04 10:25:59 <prabhu>	Ok
Jun 04 10:26:10 <KenMartin>	Do a cvs log to see who has authored most of the class in quesiton
Jun 04 10:26:11 <prabhu>	But I thought the mailing list was meant for communication. ;)
Jun 04 10:26:16 <prabhu>	yes I know.
Jun 04 10:26:40 <SebastienB>	Ken: this info is already in the doc page of the class, remember :) contribution %
Jun 04 10:26:47 <KenMartin>	If in doubt feel free to email Bill or I
Jun 04 10:27:00 <KenMartin>	Great Seb
Jun 04 10:27:00 <prabhu>	I'll do that and pester the folks with recent changes.
Jun 04 10:27:01 <legoandy>	Lately people do not really respond to mails on the list
Jun 04 10:27:39 <prabhu>	KenMartin: I'll take care of it.
Jun 04 10:27:45 <SebastienB>	prabhu: do not forget that in doubt, it's likely to be Berk's fault
Jun 04 10:27:53 <KenMartin>	Do we want to talk about performance today?
Jun 04 10:28:02 <Bigguy>	sure
Jun 04 10:28:06 <SebastienB>	ok
Jun 04 10:28:27 <Bigguy>	i've been getting beat up here about vtk slowness in the imaging pipeline
Jun 04 10:28:27 <legoandy>	So, should Dart do performance testing or tests?
Jun 04 10:28:38 <Bigguy>	we used to do performnace testing
Jun 04 10:28:42 <Bigguy>	e need a good stratgey
Jun 04 10:28:45 <SebastienB>	it would be nice to have that back
Jun 04 10:28:51 <SebastienB>	big: does it conflict with Frost ?
Jun 04 10:28:52 -->	jeffL (~chatzilla at ip19.CdNorthAmerica.COM) has joined #vtk
Jun 04 10:28:56 <Bigguy>	it was problematic
Jun 04 10:29:22 <Bigguy>	regardless, i've been nipping away at some filters
Jun 04 10:29:32 <SebastienB>	what about the filter that Ken updated to use iterators ? At least it's easier to maintain, cleaner. I do not remember of performance impact.
Jun 04 10:29:44 <Bigguy>	many imaging filters have unnecessary casts
Jun 04 10:29:52 <Bigguy>	iterators look great
Jun 04 10:30:03 <Bigguy>	seems like we should move ahead with them
Jun 04 10:30:04 <SebastienB>	(i wish we had that for the graphics pipeline :)
Jun 04 10:30:40 <Bigguy>	are other people getting complaints from curtomers about performance?
Jun 04 10:31:06 <legoandy>	(I am complaining every day how long it takes to build VTK :)
Jun 04 10:31:23 <SebastienB>	usually users are happy enough that they were able to set the pipeline that they do not complain about perfs :)
Jun 04 10:31:25 <KenMartin>	Not really, functionality more than performance, but I'd like the performance to be good as well
Jun 04 10:31:29 <prabhu>	Thats true.
Jun 04 10:31:38 <prabhu>	I meant VTK compile time.
Jun 04 10:31:45 <KenMartin>	Is there a strategy we can use to address this?
Jun 04 10:31:51 <Bigguy>	for example, imagethresold. i sped it up by a factor os 5
Jun 04 10:32:01 <prabhu>	wow
Jun 04 10:32:15 <Bigguy>	also had a problem witj imagematahematics
Jun 04 10:32:19 <legoandy>	Bill: how about you summarize approaches taken to speedup?
Jun 04 10:32:23 <Bigguy>	windows does not like to recast.
Jun 04 10:32:37 <Bigguy>	perfomance monitor shows too many ftol calls.
Jun 04 10:32:46 <Bigguy>	thats float to long
Jun 04 10:32:53 <Bigguy>	I'll summarize
Jun 04 10:33:01 <SebastienB>	big: but we definitely need Dart or another tool to monitor the perf in the long run
Jun 04 10:33:03 <legoandy>	Sort of like a guide to speedup
Jun 04 10:33:04 <Bigguy>	to the list
Jun 04 10:33:40 <KenMartin>	What would be best is if we know what filters were slow
Jun 04 10:33:55 <Bigguy>	so many... so little time
Jun 04 10:34:13 <legoandy>	Bigguy: How did you test? Could you do that for some more filters?
Jun 04 10:34:15 <KenMartin>	In the past we would tune a filter when someone complained about it
Jun 04 10:34:31 <Bigguy>	yes. that may still be the best strategy.
Jun 04 10:34:44 <Bigguy>	i just hope people complain and don't turn elswhere
Jun 04 10:34:46 <KenMartin>	We'll if we can help let us know
Jun 04 10:34:59 <Bigguy>	also, the imagestencil stuff looks like a great idea
Jun 04 10:35:14 <Bigguy>	maybe we should consider added the functionality to other filters
Jun 04 10:35:24 <Bigguy>	seems pretty straight forward
Jun 04 10:35:32 <Bigguy>	nice concept
Jun 04 10:35:41 <SebastienB>	I had a look at 50 to 70 imaging filters not that long ago (and convert them to C), for sure I can say that they use different approach to select the inner loop for example (where the choice can be made)
Jun 04 10:35:41 <KenMartin>	recap what it is?
Jun 04 10:36:07 <Bigguy>	stencils are run lengths of line segments
Jun 04 10:36:28 -->	avila (~avila at tripoint.kitware.com) has joined #vtk
Jun 04 10:36:50 <SebastienB>	in french ?
Jun 04 10:37:27 <KenMartin>	RLE images yes/no ? polylines ? Useful for?
Jun 04 10:37:39 <Bigguy>	rle images
Jun 04 10:37:48 <KenMartin>	OK
Jun 04 10:37:55 <Bigguy>	imageaccumulate uses them
Jun 04 10:38:05 <Bigguy>	i think gobbi added them
Jun 04 10:38:17 <Bigguy>	there are filetrs to create stencils from images
Jun 04 10:38:32 <Bigguy>	something to watch... and think about
Jun 04 10:38:40 <KenMartin>	I'll have to sniff around
Jun 04 10:39:09 <KenMartin>	I'd still like to see a good neighborhood iterator some day (speaking of image filters)
Jun 04 10:39:19 <Bigguy>	that wouild be great
Jun 04 10:39:23 <Bigguy>	itk has a nice one
Jun 04 10:39:29 <Bigguy>	took a lot of work
Jun 04 10:39:40 <Bigguy>	we use it all over the place
Jun 04 10:39:51 <KenMartin>	COnvert it to VTK ?
Jun 04 10:40:20 <Bigguy>	unlikely. use its design possibly
Jun 04 10:40:45 <KenMartin>	Other performance issues?
Jun 04 10:40:48 <Bigguy>	itk has lots of nice iterators
Jun 04 10:41:03 <Bigguy>	maybe for future discussion
Jun 04 10:41:16 <KenMartin>	Other issues in general?
Jun 04 10:41:33 <prabhu>	SebastienB: Can you add the unofficial RPMs page to Get software?
Jun 04 10:41:35 <SebastienB>	well, have we ever profiled VTK (while doing its tests ?)
Jun 04 10:41:55 <Bigguy>	we profile individual tests with quantify
Jun 04 10:42:06 <Bigguy>	does kitware have a license
Jun 04 10:42:15 <hoffman>	No
Jun 04 10:42:17 <Bigguy>	it's from rational, the same as purify
Jun 04 10:42:33 <KenMartin>	Not for quantify and with the quality of purify these days I'm not sure I'd buy it
Jun 04 10:42:39 <SebastienB>	we are official purify crash test site though
Jun 04 10:42:40 <Bigguy>	there may be some micorsoft equivalent
Jun 04 10:42:43 <legoandy>	Deprecation strategy
Jun 04 10:42:58 <KenMartin>	MSVC has profiling built in and it works pretty well
Jun 04 10:43:18 <hoffman>	I demo'ed quantify the other day, and it was nice
Jun 04 10:43:38 <hoffman>	The MSVC stuff is ok, but not as easy to navigate
Jun 04 10:43:49 <legoandy>	There is gprof which is free 
Jun 04 10:44:06 <prabhu>	why not use gcc's -pg and gprof -- or are they not good enough?
Jun 04 10:44:22 <legoandy>	Dart could have UI for gprof and then we could do it as a part of nightly
Jun 04 10:44:25 <prabhu>	legoandy: you ate my words.
Jun 04 10:44:36 <prabhu>	sounds cool.
Jun 04 10:44:41 <legoandy>	prabhu: no... we both ate Berk's words
Jun 04 10:44:52 <prabhu>	ahhh :)
Jun 04 10:45:06 <hoffman>	sounds like a lot of work and information for Dart to display
Jun 04 10:45:15 <legoandy>	(Also on SGI speedshop?)
Jun 04 10:45:26 <KenMartin>	And of course people would have to look at it for it to be of use
Jun 04 10:45:30 <legoandy>	Well, isn't that what dart is supposed to do?
Jun 04 10:45:43 <Bigguy>	sgi's are on my s'list right now
Jun 04 10:45:55 <legoandy>	I mean everybody can ignore dashboards already...
Jun 04 10:45:59 <Bigguy>	can't get vtk io to work when ansi is truned on
Jun 04 10:46:07 <Bigguy>	anyway...
Jun 04 10:46:18 <legoandy>	Bigguy: what is wrong with it?
Jun 04 10:46:27 <Bigguy>	tellg fails
Jun 04 10:46:34 <KenMartin>	For deprecation andy I think a proposal would have to be made first that we could discuss around
Jun 04 10:46:39 <Bigguy>	had a similar problem in itk
Jun 04 10:46:40 <legoandy>	Bigguy: badly?
Jun 04 10:46:59 <Bigguy>	readers don't work
Jun 04 10:47:10 <legoandy>	KenMartin: I think CMake should report depricated methods
Jun 04 10:47:36 <legoandy>	Bigguy: I test on Windows (VC .NET) and on Linux (xanth 64bit id's) and they both work
Jun 04 10:47:52 <Bigguy>	windos,linux,solaris are file
Jun 04 10:47:53 <Bigguy>	just sgi
Jun 04 10:48:04 <hoffman>	Bigguy:  so, with ansi on and the SGI, tellg fails?
Jun 04 10:48:07 <Bigguy>	i'm trying to track it down
Jun 04 10:48:10 <Bigguy>	discuss later
Jun 04 10:48:12 <KenMartin>	Other issues?
Jun 04 10:48:25 <Bigguy>	tellg returns -1 after first read
Jun 04 10:48:25 <legoandy>	KenMartin: We could have something like doxygen tags for depricated stuff
Jun 04 10:48:43 <Bigguy>	itk uses doxygen tags for deprecated stuff
Jun 04 10:48:48 <SebastienB>	andy: it already in the doc if you document it in the right way
Jun 04 10:48:49 <legoandy>	I think tellg is messed up on SGI. I had that problem during my ms thesis work
Jun 04 10:48:58 <Bigguy>	any fix
Jun 04 10:49:06 <Bigguy>	it kills our readers
Jun 04 10:49:10 <hoffman>	Are the streams opened in text mode?  If so, tellg is not supposed to work.
Jun 04 10:49:12 <KenMartin>	Andy, why don't you give a shot at writing up a dep strat and we will disc next time
Jun 04 10:49:17 <legoandy>	I think you have to reset flags or something
Jun 04 10:49:39 <legoandy>	KenMartin: huh, me?
Jun 04 10:49:42 <KenMartin>	yup
Jun 04 10:49:56 <legoandy>	I think CMake should do it....
Jun 04 10:49:58 <legoandy>	:)
Jun 04 10:50:03 <KenMartin>	going...
Jun 04 10:50:08 <SebastienB>	magically ?
Jun 04 10:50:11 <legoandy>	Yes!
Jun 04 10:50:13 <KenMartin>	going...
Jun 04 10:50:13 <Bigguy>	Bill: you may be right. I'll try binary
Jun 04 10:50:24 <KenMartin>	gone
Jun 04 10:50:27 <KenMartin>	Thanks Folks
Jun 04 10:50:33 <--	KenMartin has quit ("User pushed the X - because it's Xtra, baby")