[vtkusers] Performance issues with large set of actors

[Tarjei Knapstad]

I just tried visualizing about 5000 points as spheres, using a single 
vtkSphereSource, a single vtkPolyDataMapper and creating and positioning
one vtkActor for each point.

Interaction was almost impossible, in addition to the fact that this
consumed roughly a 100MB of memory. I've read the tips on performance in
the FAQ, but none of them helped much. Also, searching the mailing list
archive, I found quite a few discussions on problems when the amount of
actors grows large.

Are there any tricks on how to handle large sets of actors other than
the ones mentioned in the FAQ? Or is the only solution to go for some
other means of visualization that requires a lot fewer actors?

Thanks,
--
Tarjei