[vtkusers] vtkActor and rendering Speed advice

[Mike Jackson]

Hello all;
     I am trying to display a surface mesh that is read in from an  
STL file at the moment. The stl is really a 3D representation of  
distinct particles. For example in one file there are about 4300  
"particles". I run the connectivity filter (actually a customized  
version) the finds all the particles upon loading. I order to  
facilitate some other functionality in my application I create a new  
vtkActor for each particle instead of one vtkActor for ALL the  
particles. I have noticed a real slow down in rendering performance  
when there are lots of smaller "particles" versions a low particle  
count but high triangle count.
    My question is if I am going about the rendering the proper way?  
Is there a scaling issue with using that many vtkActors in a scene?

Thank you for any help or advice.
--------
Mike Jackson
imikejackson <at> gmail <dot> com