[vtkusers] fastest render method for spheres...?!

[Francois Bertel]

Give a shot to vtkKWEGlyph3DMapper in VTKEdge/Rendering.

see VTKEdge/Rendering/Testing/Cxx/TestGlyph3DMapper* for examples
about how to use it.

On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 12:25 PM, Benjamin Frigan
<frigan at itap.physik.uni-stuttgart.de> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Which render 'method' for displaying a bunch of spheres/cubes/tubes is
> the fastest one?
> I already tried several things and also searched the user list. Anyway,
> I just want to render a few thousand spheres and all methods I tried so
> far were quite slow. My sphere resolution was only 30 (both phi & theta).
> First, I tried:
> sphereSource > mapper > actor > vActor.push_back(actor)
> i.e. I had a vector of actors and for each sphere I had one actor. For
> setting the position and radius of the spheres I used
> sphere->SetCenter(i,j,k) and sphere->SetRadius(...). However, I searched
> the user list and someone wrote that it's faster when you use
> actor->SetOrigion(i,j,k) and actor->SetScale(...). Honestly, I didn't
> see a difference.
> I also tried to use vtkglyph3D. But this seems to be slower. You can
> find my main() below.
>
> I know that chemists do something like that  to display their molecules.
> So how do you solve that when you have, let's say 10,000 atoms?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ben
>
>
>
>
> int main()
> {
>  vtkSmartPointer<vtkPoints> points = vtkSmartPointer<vtkPoints>::New();
>  for(int i=0; i<15; i++)
>  {
>      for(int j=0; j<15; j++)
>      {
>          for(int k=0; k<15; k++)
>              points->InsertNextPoint(i,j,k);
>      }
>  }
>  vtkSmartPointer<vtkPolyData> polydata =
> vtkSmartPointer<vtkPolyData>::New();
>  polydata->SetPoints(points);
>
>  vtkSmartPointer<vtkSphereSource> sphereSource =
> vtkSmartPointer<vtkSphereSource>::New();
>  sphereSource->SetRadius(.3);
>  sphereSource->SetPhiResolution(30);
>  sphereSource->SetThetaResolution(30);
>
>  vtkSmartPointer<vtkGlyph3D> glyph3D = vtkSmartPointer<vtkGlyph3D>::New();
>  glyph3D->SetSource(sphereSource->GetOutput());
>  glyph3D->SetInput(polydata);
>  glyph3D->Update();
>
>  vtkSmartPointer<vtkPolyDataMapper> glyphMapper =
> vtkSmartPointer<vtkPolyDataMapper>::New();
>  glyphMapper->SetInput(glyph3D->GetOutput());
>
>  vtkSmartPointer<vtkActor> glyphActor = vtkSmartPointer<vtkActor>::New();
>  glyphActor->SetMapper(glyphMapper);
>
>  vtkSmartPointer<vtkRenderer> renderer =
> vtkSmartPointer<vtkRenderer>::New();
>  vtkSmartPointer<vtkRenderWindow> renderWindow =
> vtkSmartPointer<vtkRenderWindow>::New();
>  renderWindow->AddRenderer(renderer);
>
>  vtkSmartPointer<vtkRenderWindowInteractor> renderWindowInteractor =
> vtkSmartPointer<vtkRenderWindowInteractor>::New();
>  renderWindowInteractor->SetRenderWindow(renderWindow);
>
>  renderer->AddActor(glyphActor);
>  renderer->SetBackground(0.1, 0.2, 0.4);
>
>  renderWindow->Render();
>
>  vtkSmartPointer<vtkInteractorStyleTrackballCamera> style =
> vtkSmartPointer<vtkInteractorStyleTrackballCamera>::New();
>  renderWindowInteractor->SetInteractorStyle( style );
>  renderWindowInteractor->Start();
>
>  return 0;
> }
>
>
>
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-- 
François Bertel, PhD  | Kitware Inc. Suite 204
1 (518) 371 3971 x113 | 28 Corporate Drive
                      | Clifton Park NY 12065, USA