Risto Rangel-Kuoppa wrote:
Thx for the reply. I also thought in using the updating tools but since
I am someway new to Java3D I choose the path of coding them, since after
all it should work in either way. But I was able to achieve my needs
with the "reference keeping" approach. Also, I choose to code it since
the changes in the textures is almost a pixel based and dependent on
others pixels content -somekind of a pixel shader. Thanx :)
<rant>
Unfortunately these are the sorts of things that we end up having to
deal with over here in the J3D community, which are far, far less
prevalent in other 3D graphics API communities. A lot of newbie
programmers assuming that just because it's the easiest way of doing
things that Java3D should just magically do things correctly. Then, some
time later a bitch email comes through that says "java3d suxs - it uses
so much memory!". Texturing is just one of them - the other one is the
geometry/transform group stuff. Just because you can, doesn't make it
the best way of doing things. In J3D it is exacerbated by the
programmers not bothering to try to understand fundamental 3D graphics
concepts, so trying to convince them of the errors of their ways is even
harder than normal.
</rant>
Even if you are changing the entire image, it is far, far more efficient
to use the setSubImage() API calls than to replace the entire texture.
At the hardware level, there is a lot of setup issues required to create
new textures. Once that texture is created, replacing parts of it (where
the part could be the entire contents) is extremely cheap in comparison.
If you are doing a pixel-shader-like function, then this will make a
significant performance difference.
--
Justin Couch http://www.vlc.com.au/~justin/
Java Architect & Bit Twiddler http://www.yumetech.com/
Author, Java 3D FAQ Maintainer http://www.j3d.org/
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Humanism is dead. Animals think, feel; so do machines now.
Neither man nor woman is the measure of all things. Every organism
processes data according to its domain, its environment; you, with
all your brains, would be useless in a mouse's universe..."
- Greg Bear, Slant
-------------------------------------------------------------------
===========================================================================
To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and include in the body
of the message "signoff JAVA3D-INTEREST". For general help, send email to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] and include in the body of the message "help".
