[vtkusers] Java flickering issue

[William E. Lucarell]

Rich,

I am posting this to vtkusers so that others may see the solution.  Yes, I resolved the problem.  You need to use the SwingUtilities.invokeLater method in the Runnable interface.  Here is generic example code for animation without flickering:

    Animate = new Runnable() {
            @Override
        public void run() {
            renWin.getIren().Disable(); // disable the render window
            while (ScalarCounter < NumberOfFrames && !Thread.interrupted()) {
                try {
                    // Set the file name
                          reader.SetFileName("C:/test.vtk");

                          // Prepare the mesh
                    castToPolyData = new vtkCastToConcrete();
                    castToPolyData.SetInput(reader.GetOutput());
                    TestMesh = (vtkPolyData) castToPolyData.GetOutput();
                    TestMesh.Allocate(1, 1);
                    TestMesh.Update();

                          // InvokeLater prevents flickering
                    SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
                        @Override
                        public void run () {
                            renWin.getIren().Modified();
                            renWin.Render();
                        }
                    });
                    Thread.sleep(250); // sleep for 250 milliseconds before next update
                    ScalarCounter++; // increment the frame counter

                          // Get the points and cells of the new frame
                    NumberOfNodes = TestMesh.GetNumberOfPoints();
                    NumberOfElements = TestMesh.GetNumberOfCells();

                          // If you have a slider that indicates the frame in the slideshow, set the slider location/value
                          mainFrame.setTimeSlider(ScalarCounter);

                          // If you're using play/pause/other buttons, enable/disable the proper buttons after the animation is done
                    if (ScalarCounter == NumberOfFrames){
                        mainFrame.getPlay().setEnabled(true);
                        mainFrame.getPause().setEnabled(false);
                        mainFrame.getLoadHeat2D().setEnabled(true);
                        mainFrame.getOpen().setEnabled(true);
                        mainFrame.getSaveAVI().setEnabled(true);
                        mainFrame.getSaveImage().setEnabled(true);
                        mainFrame.getNodeCheck().setEnabled(true);
                        mainFrame.getElementCheck().setEnabled(true);
                    }
                } // end try

                    // We must catch the InterruptedException
                catch (InterruptedException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace
                } // end catch
            } // end while

                // Re-enable the render window
            renWin.getIren().Enable();
        } // end run()
    }; // end construction of Runnable Animate

    // Create the thread
    animateThread = new Thread(Animate);

    // To start the thread (put in appropriate location)
    animateThread.start();

Hope this helps,

Bill

-----Original Message-----
From: osue80 at bangor.ac.uk [mailto:osue80 at bangor.ac.uk]
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 10:39 AM
To: William E. Lucarell
Subject: Java flickering issue

Hello
I read your post and I'm having the same problems with the screen flickering, I was wondering if you managed to find a solution to this - is there a double buffering method??
Hope you managed to get the problem sorted

Cheers

Rich

William E Lucarell wrote:
>
> I am embedding a vtkPanel in a Java form with NetBeans.  I am performing a
> 10 step animation (with one thread) on an image that re-renders every 500
> milliseconds.  The animation works fine; however, I have one issue.  Every
> time the window renders, the screen flickers.   Occasionally I get a
> setPixelFormat error which ends the application.  I know that double
> buffering will solve the issue, but vtkPanel does not have a
> setDoubleBuffered method like JPanel.  How can I avoid the flickering and
> the error?
>
>
>
> Thanks!
>
>
>
> Bill Lucarell
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Quoted from:
http://www.nabble.com/Java-flickering-issue-tp15615576p15615576.html