[Radiance-dev] Re: setting buffer size on octree reads (setvbuf)

[Gregory J. Ward]

Hi Randolph,

There's no sensible way to read in an octree without doing some  
allocation along the way.  The file format is designed more for speed  
and portability than for speed.  Peter A-B and I found out (after  
instrumenting the code a bit) that the slow loads in his case are  
from the modifier usage more than anything else.  Peter will  
explain.  (Peter?)

-Greg

> From: R Fritz <rfritz at u.washington.edu>
> Date: April 29, 2008 1:30:06 PM PDT
>
> [Reappearing from under a tub]
>
>> Since readoct has to unpack the data and allocate octree nodes and
>> leaves and so on, I'm not sure how best to speed up the process.
>
> Perhaps the data doesn't need to be packed any more? There's hugely  
> more memory available in modern systems than the ones you worked  
> with when you developed that file format. Though I suppose the best  
> thing to do is the by-the-book "instrument, then code" approach.
>
> Randolph Fritz
>