VRML versus STL and general performance in 3D Picture Control.

[diegodiego]

Hello Community!

I'm curretly working with another developer to optimize a fairly substantial labview based application that uses 3D picture controls.  We take export cad models designed by our mechanical engineers and present them in 3D picture controls.  The models are provided to me in ASCII STL.

I've googled this topic quite a bit but I can't find too many examples of developers getting far into the weeds with 3D scene development in Labview.  Although the OpenGL wrappers in LV aren't often put in the spotlight for LV application development, i've been able to get great results with a Windows 7 computer and and NVIDIA graphics card.  When I move to an older computer with a mobile i7 processor with integrated Intel HD graphics card, things render a lot slower but my original application wasn't built from the ground up on the older computing platform so I don't know if it's my code or a hard limitation of the graphics card holding me back.

Anyone have any experience optimizing 3d scenes with Labview?  Also, i noticed that loading VRML to a 3D picture control is a lot less syntax than loading an STL (which the provided LV library Vi just turns the STL data into a mesh).  Does anyhone know if LV is able to render VRML sourced cad files more efficiently? By the time you pipe the refnum to the 3d picture control is it the same regardless of VRML vs STL?

Also i'm manipulating the scale/orientations/translations of my 3d objects with 4x4 matrices, not the built in transformation vi's provided by labview.

Thanks!

[Leeroy_Jenkins]

Hi diegodiego,

I wouldn't be suprised if something you build on the current system presses the limits of the older system. With it working on the current system, we can assume that your code is correct. Are you looking to optimize your code for the older system or just doing a sanity check to make sure things are running as expected.

Have you taken a look at the GDI Objects in your Task Manager while your code is running to see how far you are pushing your graphics?

Robert S.

Applications Engineering

National Instruments

[MarcDub]

Have a look at this document: DOC-46561. Let me know if you have any question.

Also, have a look at (and join) the 3D Vision group.