JavaFX performance for complex visualisations

[Daniel Zwolenski]

And just for reference, I had business cases to show:
* P&IDs like these
http://www.creativeengineers.com/process-engineering/diagrams/pid.html
* Site maps similar to this sort of thing:
http://www.cegenvironmental.com/Services/Phase_II_ESA/Blueberry_Processing_Plant/topoDKWfsmall.gif

And to include zooming with LOD (i.e. more detail zoomed in, less detail at
birds eye view), selective layering/highlighting (i.e. turn on/off
different pipes or sections), hyperlinking and mouse overs, and
markers/annotations (i.e. put a flag on the map, or a semi-transparent
overlay over a "hot" section). No animations at least.

JFX wasn't up to the task performance wise as far as I could tell in 2.0.
We scaled back to just showing blurry images and putting a few markers
(e.g. triangles/arrows/dots) on them but this was still quite slow but that
could well have been the logic behind it (things got ugly).

This was for mining, chemical, manufacturing and general heavy industries
(not unlike the cargo unloading thing from JavaOne).




On Sat, Dec 8, 2012 at 7:37 PM, Dr. Michael Paus <mp at jugs.org> wrote:

> Am 07.12.2012 21:20, schrieb Richard Bair:
>
>  Hi Michael,
>>
>>  According to my experience JavaFX is currently not able to handle
>>>>> graphically intensive
>>>>> applications.
>>>>>
>>>> Depends on what you are doing that is "graphically intense" -- if it is
>>>> a lot of paths (thousands) then yes, this is slow. If it is a lot of images
>>>> and lines and effects and such, then actually you can do a heck of a lot
>>>> with FX (which is graphically intense!)
>>>>
>>> This is of course true but tell me how far do you really get if you only
>>> have these elements available?
>>> You cannot even draw a simple filled triangle without creating a path
>>> and thus slowing down your application.
>>> A graphically intensive business application without paths seems to be a
>>> very specific corner case to me but
>>> maybe it is just me who feels so. What I have in mind when I talk about
>>> such applications are large diagrams,
>>> floor plans, vector maps with a lot of symbols on them and so on.
>>>
>> If you're needing triangles, then you're in another class of application
>> than the kind we've so far properly supported. Hopefully the 3D stuff will
>> help bridge the gap.
>>
>> (I've not seen triangles in use except in 3D programming which may
>> explain why I haven't considered that particular use case critical for our
>> earlier releases, but hopefully we'll be able to handle your case properly
>> now).
>>
> Just to avoid some misunderstanding. I mentioned triangles only as an
> example for the most trivial geometry which cannot be
> created without using paths right now. In practice I have to create more
> complicated geometries of course.
>
>
> --
> ------------------------------**------------------------------**
> --------------------------
> Dr. Michael Paus, Chairman of the Java User Group Stuttgart e.V. (JUGS).
> For more information visit www.jugs.de.
>
>