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How to draw efficient lines?
I have used gl.glines so far. But is there another way or a better way to draw lines more efficiently? (1000 - 2000 lines)
Can i draw lines static with GL?
Thanks in advance:)
GL.Lines is immediate mode, so they must be drawn every frame and there's no way around it. Vectrosity creates meshes, or canvas objects (depending on version), so lines can be drawn once and then left alone, if they don't need to be updated.
Answer by gregroberts · Dec 02, 2014 at 08:27 PM
I highly reccomend Vectrosity, an amazing $30 plug-in which has the best documentation and ease-of-use of almost any software I've ever used. The website is here: http://www.starscenesoftware.com/vectrosity.html
I have an app running on Oculus Rift with about 10,000 concurrent animated line segments. Using Vectrosity, it clocks in at about 40fps on a 2012 MacBook Air with no GPU. All those smooth curves you see below are actually long arrays of about 50+ line segments each.
Answer by Cherno · Dec 02, 2014 at 11:57 PM
There's also a more complex version, I found it on the Unity wiki a while ago, works very well.
using System.Reflection;
using UnityEngine;
// Line drawing routine originally courtesy of Linusmartensson:
// http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/71979-Drawing-lines-in-the-editor
//
// Rewritten to improve performance by Yossarian King / August 2013.
//
// This version produces virtually identical results to the original (tested by drawing
// one over the other and observing errors of one pixel or less), but for large numbers
// of lines this version is more than four times faster than the original, and comes
// within about 70% of the raw performance of Graphics.DrawTexture.
//
// Peak performance on my laptop is around 200,000 lines per second. The laptop is
// Windows 7 64-bit, Intel Core2 Duo CPU 2.53GHz, 4G RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GT 220M.
// Line width and anti-aliasing had negligible impact on performance.
//
// For a graph of benchmark results in a standalone Windows build, see this image:
// https://app.box.com/s/hyuhi565dtolqdm97e00
//
// For a Google spreadsheet with full benchmark results, see:
// https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvJlJlbRO26VdHhzeHNRMVF2UHZHMXFCTVFZN011V1E&usp=sharing
public static class Drawing
{
private static Texture2D aaLineTex = null;
private static Texture2D lineTex = null;
private static Material blitMaterial = null;
private static Material blendMaterial = null;
private static Rect lineRect = new Rect(0, 0, 1, 1);
// Draw a line in screen space, suitable for use from OnGUI calls from either
// MonoBehaviour or EditorWindow. Note that this should only be called during repaint
// events, when (Event.current.type == EventType.Repaint).
//
// Works by computing a matrix that transforms a unit square -- Rect(0,0,1,1) -- into
// a scaled, rotated, and offset rectangle that corresponds to the line and its width.
// A DrawTexture call used to draw a line texture into the transformed rectangle.
//
// More specifically:
// scale x by line length, y by line width
// rotate around z by the angle of the line
// offset by the position of the upper left corner of the target rectangle
//
// By working out the matrices and applying some trigonometry, the matrix calculation comes
// out pretty simple. See https://app.box.com/s/xi08ow8o8ujymazg100j for a picture of my
// notebook with the calculations.
public static void DrawLine(Vector2 pointA, Vector2 pointB, Color color, float width, bool antiAlias)
{
// Normally the static initializer does this, but to handle texture reinitialization
// after editor play mode stops we need this check in the Editor.
#if UNITY_EDITOR
if (!lineTex)
{
Initialize();
}
#endif
// Note that theta = atan2(dy, dx) is the angle we want to rotate by, but instead
// of calculating the angle we just use the sine (dy/len) and cosine (dx/len).
float dx = pointB.x - pointA.x;
float dy = pointB.y - pointA.y;
float len = Mathf.Sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy);
// Early out on tiny lines to avoid divide by zero.
// Plus what's the point of drawing a line 1/1000th of a pixel long??
if (len < 0.001f)
{
return;
}
// Pick texture and material (and tweak width) based on anti-alias setting.
Texture2D tex;
Material mat;
if (antiAlias)
{
// Multiplying by three is fine for anti-aliasing width-1 lines, but make a wide "fringe"
// for thicker lines, which may or may not be desirable.
width = width * 3.0f;
tex = aaLineTex;
mat = blendMaterial;
}
else
{
tex = lineTex;
mat = blitMaterial;
}
float wdx = width * dy / len;
float wdy = width * dx / len;
Matrix4x4 matrix = Matrix4x4.identity;
matrix.m00 = dx;
matrix.m01 = -wdx;
matrix.m03 = pointA.x + 0.5f * wdx;
matrix.m10 = dy;
matrix.m11 = wdy;
matrix.m13 = pointA.y - 0.5f * wdy;
// Use GL matrix and Graphics.DrawTexture rather than GUI.matrix and GUI.DrawTexture,
// for better performance. (Setting GUI.matrix is slow, and GUI.DrawTexture is just a
// wrapper on Graphics.DrawTexture.)
GL.PushMatrix();
GL.MultMatrix(matrix);
Graphics.DrawTexture(lineRect, tex, lineRect, 0, 0, 0, 0, color, mat);
GL.PopMatrix();
}
// Other than method name, DrawBezierLine is unchanged from Linusmartensson's original implementation.
public static void DrawBezierLine(Vector2 start, Vector2 startTangent, Vector2 end, Vector2 endTangent, Color color, float width, bool antiAlias, int segments)
{
Vector2 lastV = CubeBezier(start, startTangent, end, endTangent, 0);
for (int i = 1; i < segments; ++i)
{
Vector2 v = CubeBezier(start, startTangent, end, endTangent, i/(float)segments);
Drawing.DrawLine(lastV, v, color, width, antiAlias);
lastV = v;
}
}
private static Vector2 CubeBezier(Vector2 s, Vector2 st, Vector2 e, Vector2 et, float t)
{
float rt = 1 - t;
return rt * rt * rt * s + 3 * rt * rt * t * st + 3 * rt * t * t * et + t * t * t * e;
}
// This static initializer works for runtime, but apparently isn't called when
// Editor play mode stops, so DrawLine will re-initialize if needed.
static Drawing()
{
Initialize();
}
private static void Initialize()
{
if (lineTex == null)
{
lineTex = new Texture2D(1, 1, TextureFormat.ARGB32, false);
lineTex.SetPixel(0, 1, Color.white);
lineTex.Apply();
}
if (aaLineTex == null)
{
// TODO: better anti-aliasing of wide lines with a larger texture? or use Graphics.DrawTexture with border settings
aaLineTex = new Texture2D(1, 3, TextureFormat.ARGB32, false);
aaLineTex.SetPixel(0, 0, new Color(1, 1, 1, 0));
aaLineTex.SetPixel(0, 1, Color.white);
aaLineTex.SetPixel(0, 2, new Color(1, 1, 1, 0));
aaLineTex.Apply();
}
// GUI.blitMaterial and GUI.blendMaterial are used internally by GUI.DrawTexture,
// depending on the alphaBlend parameter. Use reflection to "borrow" these references.
blitMaterial = (Material)typeof(GUI).GetMethod("get_blitMaterial", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Static).Invoke(null, null);
blendMaterial = (Material)typeof(GUI).GetMethod("get_blendMaterial", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Static).Invoke(null, null);
}
}
The question was specifically about some way other than GL.Lines, which the OP has already been using.
You have to admit it's funny if someone asks "what's a more efficient way than GL.Lines" and you say "GL.Lines!" Just sayin'. ;)
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