We Keep Coding

Render lots of individual pixels efficient?

I have made a map on an image which I load in the game like this:
List<Block> tempBlocks = new ArrayList<Block>();
BufferedImage level = levels.get(currentLevel);
for (int x = 0; x < level.getWidth(); x++) {
for (int y = 0; y < level.getHeight(); y++) {
tempBlocks.add(new Block(x, y, new Color(level.getRGB(x, y))));
}
}
blocks = tempBlocks;
isLoading = false;
The array blocks is an array with all 1-pixel-blocks. Every single block renders like this:
g.setColor(color);
g.drawLine(x, y, x, y);
I call them like this:
for (int i = 0; i < getCurrentScene().blocks.size(); i++)
getCurrentScene().blocks.get(i).render(g);
It's 1280x720 blocks... Is it a better way to render this insane amount of blocks? Because I want it to load from an image, which is 1280x720. I get like 3 FPS now...

For what you're doing now, if you do that for every frame, you're creating new objects all over the place for every single frame, and only using them once before discarding and allowing the garbage collector to pick them up.
Create enough objects to represent how the screen is now.
Create enough objects to represent how the screen should be next.
Don't lose those. Don't create any more.
For the Color(int int int) thing you're doing? You can just do Color(int); new color(level.getRGB(x, y)) should work just fine; the java.awt.Color class can take a single int instead of three.
That said, you'd still be initializing Color a million times. If you have a limited number of Colors, it may be beneficial to call them directly or cache them in some way, instead of continually recreating new Color objects on the heap.

Shepard solved it in the comments. What I did was to render the image as g.drawImage(image, x, y); instead of rendering all of the pixels. I still use the blocks for collision detection, but that is way more efficient.

How to move an entire GPen object?

In Java using the acm.graphics GPen is there any way to move the entire drawn sequence of lines? I've read the manual thoroughly and I'm beginning to think it's not possible which brings me to my second question. Are there any other graphics objects in Java that work very similar to a pen that can also be moved. The reason I'm asking is because I've been working on a graphing program that allows mouse gestures to be used to pan around and zoom in and out. After building functionality for implicit functions I realized simply clearing the drawing board and redrawing everything is not going to cut it anymore so I really need to work on more efficient ways to handle intermediate changes of the graph without having to recalculate everything. For example with this or similar code:
GPen p = new GPen();
p.setLocation(100,100); //places the pen on the canvas at 100, 100
p.drawLine(-50,0); //draw a line left 50 pixels
p.drawLine(50,-50); //draw a line right and up 50 pixels each
p.drawLine(0,50); //draw a line down 50 pixels
This would result in a simple right triangle who's bottom right most point is at 100, 100 on a particular canvas. What I need to do is be able to move this same drawn sequence of lines relative to one another to another origin. What I hoping for is a class that has separate methods for setLocation() and move() where setLocation() controls pen position and move() would move the entire object around.

Ok so having received almost no attention on here I've came to the conclusion that such a method just needs to be written from scratch and went ahead and did that. I'm not entirely sure how helpful posting my proprietary code would be but in the event that anybody could use it I'll post the basic idea of it. Since Pen utilities are essentially a bunch of lines and lines are a bunch of from and to's I created an object that I called FPen (for FunctionPen) that accepts the instructions for from and to. While defining FPen you pass it where to start and how far to go however many times you need and that's it. Once you've passed these instructions I created another method called returnGPen(Color c) which will on call use the instructions it has on hand and generate the desired GPen object. When you want to move the entire GPen you can then create a method called adjustOrigin(double oX, double oY); which will calculate a change from a previously recorded origin and this new one and go through the list of instructions and adjust them appropriately.
My needs for this Class are strictly for my Graphing program and are not entirely finished either but it does work for most purposes.
import acm.graphics.GPen;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.util.ArrayList;
public class FPen{
private double relativeCenterX;
private double relativeCenterY;
private ArrayList<Double> fromX = new ArrayList<Double>();
private ArrayList<Double> fromY = new ArrayList<Double>();
private ArrayList<Double> distX = new ArrayList<Double>();
private ArrayList<Double> distY = new ArrayList<Double>();
public FPen(double rX, double rY, double z){
relativeCenterX = rX;
relativeCenterY = rY;
}
public void adjustOrigin(double cX, double cY){
double changeX = relativeCenterX-cX;
double changeY = relativeCenterY-cY;
for(int i = 0; i < fromX.size(); i++){
fromX.set(i,fromX.get(i)+changeX*zoom);
fromY.set(i,fromY.get(i)-changeY*zoom);
}
relativeCenterX = cX;
relativeCenterY = cY;
}
public void clear(){
fromX.clear();
fromY.clear();
distX.clear();
distY.clear();
}
public void drawLine(double fX, double fY, double tX, double tY){
fromX.add(fX);
fromY.add(fY);
distX.add(tX);
distY.add(tY);
}
public GPen returnGPen(Color c){
GPen pen = new GPen();
pen.setColor(c);
for(int i = 0; i < fromX.size(); i++){
pen.setLocation(fromX.get(i),fromY.get(i));
pen.drawLine(distX.get(i),distY.get(i));
}
return pen;
}
}
Of course a unexpected nice thing that came out of this was the idea that I can now quickly benchmark different drawing routines by creating different methods for each and calling what I'm interested in.

Drawing lots of particles efficiently

I have written a particle system applet; currently I am creating, and drawing each particle separately.
(Here is the code)
BufferedImage backbuffer;
Graphics2D g2d;
public void init(){
backbuffer = new BufferedImage(WIDTH,HEIGHT,BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);
g2d = backbuffer.createGraphics();
setSize(WIDTH, HEIGHT);
//creates the particles
for (int i = 0; i < AMOUNTPARTICLES; i++) {
prtl[i] = new particleO();
prtl[i].setX(rand.nextInt(STARTX));
prtl[i].setY(rand.nextInt(STARTY));
prtl[i].setVel(rand.nextInt(MAXSPEED)+1);
prtl[i].setFAngle(Math.toRadians(rand.nextInt(ANGLESPREAD)));
}
//other code
}
public void update(Graphics g) {
g2d.setTransform(identity);
//set background
g2d.setPaint(BGCOLOUR);
g2d.fillRect(0,0,getSize().width,getSize().height);
drawp();
paint(g);
}
public void drawp() {
for (int n = 0; n < AMOUNTPARTICLES; n++) {
if (prtl[n].getAlive()==true){
g2d.setTransform(identity);
g2d.translate(prtl[n].getX(), prtl[n].getY());
g2d.setColor(prtl[n].getColor());
g2d.fill(prtl[n].getShape());
}
}
}
It's performance was alright, I could get ~40FPS with 20,000 particles (although, I have a decent laptop). But after I added collision detection (see below), that number plummeted to less than 2000,
public void particleUpdate(){
for (int i = 0; i < AMOUNTPARTICLES; i++) {
//other update code (posx, posy, angle etc etc)
for (int j = 0; j < AMOUNTPARTICLES; j++) {
if (i!=j && prtl[j].getAlive()==true){
if(hasCollided(i, j)){
prtl[i].setcolor(Color.BLACK);
prtl[j].setcolor(Color.BLACK);
}
}
}
public boolean hasCollided(int prt1, int prt2){
double dx = prtl[prt1].getX() - prtl[prt2].getX();
double dy = prtl[prt1].getY() - prtl[prt2].getY();
int edges = prtl[prt1].getRadius() + prtl[prt2].getRadius();
double distance = Math.sqrt( (dx*dx) + (dy*dy) );
return (distance <= edges);
}
I have searched quite a bit for a better way of drawing the particles to the screen, but the examples either confused me, or were not applicable.
I am doing a boat load of calculations (too many). But I couldn’t think of another way of doing it, suggestions are welcome.

First of all, adding in something like collision detection always takes a lot of memory. However, let's look at your collision detection algorithm
public void particleUpdate(){
for (int i = 0; i < AMOUNTPARTICLES; i++) {
//other update code (posx, posy, angle etc etc)
for (int j = 0; j < AMOUNTPARTICLES; j++) {
if (i!=j && prtl[j].getAlive()==true){
if(hasCollided(i, j)){
prtl[i].setcolor(Color.BLACK);
prtl[j].setcolor(Color.BLACK);
}
}
}
Let's pretend there was only 2 particles, 1 and 2. You will check, in order
1,1
1,2
2,1
2,2
The truth is, you only really needed to check 1 vs 2 in this case. If 1 hits 2, 2 will also hit 1. So change your for loop skip previously tested, and the same number for that matter.
public void particleUpdate(){
for (int i = 0; i < AMOUNTPARTICLES; i++) {
//other update code (posx, posy, angle etc etc)
for (int j = i+1; j < AMOUNTPARTICLES; j++) {
Another thing I notice is that you do a sqrt operation, but only to compare to what looks like a static number. If you remove that, and compare it to the number squared, you'll get a large improvement, especially with something you do so much.
double distance_squared = ( (dx*dx) + (dy*dy) );
return (distance <= edges*edges);
Keep looking for improvements like this. Then you might carefully look at other options, like using a different class, threading, etc, which all might improve the system. But make sure you optimize the code where you can first. Here is a list of other things that I would try, roughly in order.
Check to see if particle i is alive before you even calculate anything else after i comes into view.
Do a quick pass over the pairs, only even bothering to check in detail if they are close. A simple way would be to detect if they are within the x and y dimensions first, before taking a sqrt operation. Always do the cheapest test first, before doing complex ones.
Look at your code, to see if you really use all of the values calculated, or if you might be able to reduce the number of operations somehow.
Perhaps you could cluster the images on a regular basis with a broad stroke, then refine only objects which passed the initial cluster for a period of time, then do a broad cluster algorithm.
You could thread the collision detection. However, if you are going to do this, you should only thread the checking to see if something has collided, and after all of those threads are done, update the objects on the view.
Look into alternative architectures, which might speed things up some.

Painting is a complex process and paint requests can be triggered for any number of reasons, the OS might want the window to update, the repaint manager might want to repaint, the programer might want to repaint.
Updating the particles within the paint process is bad idea. What you want to do is update the particles in a separate thread on a separate buffer. When you're ready, request that the component responsible for painting the buffer perform a repaint, passing a new copy of the buffer to repainted (you don't want to be painting on the buffer that is begin updated to the screen, you'll end up with dirty paints).
It's hard to tell from you code, but it would appear you're using java.awt.Applet, personally, I'd upgrade to javax.swing.JApplet.
I'd move the painting to a java.swing.JPanel. Swing components provide double buffering (as well as other buffering strategies). The only job this panel has is to paint a buffer to the screen when the particles engine has a new frame.
The particles engine is responsible for updating all the particles and painting these results to a backing buffer (BufferedImage), this would then be handed to the panel and the panel would make a copy and schedule an update.
Swing is NOT THREAD SAFE. That is, you shouldn't make changes to the UI from any thread other then the Event Dispatching Thread. To this end, you might like to have a read through Concurrency in Swing for solutions to resync the off screen buffer to the client.

You are checking all particless colliding with all particlesand this is quite a requeriment, of the order of n^2 (2,000 particles means 4,000,000 combinations, for each frame).
The issue is not java but the algorithm. There must be better options, but to begin with you could reduce the comparations; if you have a maximum speed S and the time in your world increments by T, with T*S you get the maximum distance D of a particle that can collide with the particle you are considering. Reduce the search to those particle which are at a distance equal or less than that. Maybe it will be easier to restrict the search to those in an square centered in your particle an with height/widht D (this will include some particles that are too far, but will make the checks easier).
Additionally, in your code you are checking collisions of P1 vs P2 and P2 vs P1 which is the same, that is a redundance that you can avoid easily.

Slick is getting very slow but only drawin rectangles

I am using slick for java since a few days and got a serious problem.
If i run a completely empty apllication (it just shows the fps) with a solution of 800x600 i get a fps count between 700 and 800.
If I now draw an array with 13300 entries as a grid of green and white rectangles, the fps drop to something around 70.
With more entries in the array it becomes really slow.
For example in a solution of 1024x768 and an array with 21760 entries the fps drop to 40.
How i draw a single entry:
public void draw(Graphics graphics){
graphics.setColor(new Color(getColor().getRed(), getColor().getGreen(), getColor().getBlue(), getColor().getAlpha()));
graphics.fillRect(getPosition().x, getPosition().y, getSize().x, getSize().y);
Color_ARGB white = new Color_ARGB(Color_ARGB.ColorNames.WHITE);
graphics.setColor(new Color(white.getRed(), white.getGreen(), white.getBlue(), white.getAlpha()));
}
And this is how I draw the complete array:
public void draw(Graphics graphics) {
for (int ix = 0; ix < getWidth(); ix++) {
for (int iy = 0; iy < getHeight(); iy++) {
getGameGridAt(ix, iy).draw(graphics);
}
}
}
In my opinion 21760 is not that much.
Is there anything wrong with my code or is slick just too slow to draw so much rectangles?

You only want to draw rectangles that are on the screen. If your screen bounds go from 0 to 1024 in the x direction and from 0 to 768 in the y direction, then you only want to loop through rectangles that are inside those bounds and then only draw those rectangles. I can't imagine you are trying to draw 21760 rectangles inside those bounds.
If you are, then try creating one static rectangle and then just try drawing that ONE in all of the different positions you need to draw it at rather than creating a new one every time. For example, in a game I am making, I might have 1000 tiles that are "grass" tiles, but all 1000 of those share the same static texture. So I only need to reference one image rather than each tile creating its own.
Each rectangle can still have a unique state. Just make your own rectangle class and have a static final Image that holds a 5*5 image. Each rectangle will use this image when it needs to be drawn. You can still have unique properties for each rectangle. For example, private Vector2f position, private boolean isAlive, etc

You're probably not going to be able to draw individual rectangles any faster than that.
Games that render millions of polygons per second do so using vertex buffer objects (VBO). For that, you'll probably need to code against the OpenGL API (LWJGL) itself, not a wrapper.

Not sure if Slick will allow it, but if this thing looks anything like a chessboard grid... you could draw just 4 rectangles, grab them and use the resulting image as a texture for your whole image. I'm not even a java programmer just trying to come up with a solution.

Since you're only repeatedly using just a few colors creating a new Color object for every single one is bound to be slow... use new only once for each different color used and store the re-usable colors somewhere in your class, than call the functions with those, constantly allocating and freeing memory is very slow.
And while this might not be as much a benefit as not using new each time but have you considered caching the results of all those function calls and rewriting code as
public void draw(Graphics graphics) {
int ixmax = getWidth();
int iymax = getHeight();
for (int ix = 0; ix < ixmax; ix++) {
for (int iy = 0; iy < iymax; iy++) {
getGameGridAt(ix, iy).draw(graphics);
}
}
}
Or if you'd prefer not to declare new variables
public void draw(Graphics graphics) {
for (int ix = getWidth() - 1; ix >= 0; ix--) {
for (int iy = getHeight() - 1; iy >= 0; iy--) {
getGameGridAt(ix, iy).draw(graphics);
}
}
}

Just noticed in another answer you have an integral size grid (5x5) ... in this case the fastest way to go about this would seem to be to draw each item a single pixel (you can do this directly in memory using a 2-dimensional array) and scale it to 500% or use it as a texture and draw a single rectangle with it the final size you desire ... should be quite fast. Sorry for all the confusion caused by previous answers, you should have said what you're doing more clearly from the start.
If scaling and textures are not available you can still draw in memory using something like this (written in c++, please translate it to java yourself)
for( int x = 0; x < grid.width(); x++ ) {
for( int y = 0; y < grid.height(); y++ ) {
image[x*5][y*5] = grid.color[x][y];
image[x*5][y*5 + 1] = grid.color[x][y];
image[x*5][y*5 + 2] = grid.color[x][y];
image[x*5][y*5 + 3] = grid.color[x][y];
image[x*5][y*5 + 4] = grid.color[x][y];
}
memcpy(image[x*5+1], image[x*5], grid.height() * sizeof(image[0][0]) );
memcpy(image[x*5+2], image[x*5], grid.height() * sizeof(image[0][0]) );
memcpy(image[x*5+3], image[x*5], grid.height() * sizeof(image[0][0]) );
memcpy(image[x*5+4], image[x*5], grid.height() * sizeof(image[0][0]) );
}
I'm not sure, but perhaps for graphics the x and y might be represented in the reversed order than used here, so change the code accordingly if it that's the case (you'll figure that out as soon as a few iterations run), also your data is probably structured a bit differently but I think the idea should be clear.

Animating a line between two Point objects

What's the simplest way to draw a line between two Point objects in a way
that will look like I am drawing that line in real time by hand?
For example:
Point a = new Point(5,20);
Point b = new Point(15,20);
How do I connect these points with a "moving" line?
In other words I want to make the user feel "motion" of some sort. Is there a simple way to do that?

Given two points, you can determine the equation of the line connecting them. The equation of a line is of the form y = mx + c, where m is the slope, and c is the y intercept.
So, given your two points (5,20) and (15,20), we first determine m.
m = (y2-y1)/(x2-x1)
= (20-20)/(15-5)
= (0)/10
= 0
Substituting into the equation for a straight line, we get y = 0x + c or y = c. Now that we know this, we simply need to know the points where y = c and 5<=x<=15. Simply draw each of these points in the normal way (look at this for the exact method) with a Thread.sleep() call in between drawing each point. In this case, you have only 11 points to draw, so it would make sense to draw 1 point every 100 ms. For details on Thread.sleep() see here.
EDIT: Since Thread.sleep() won't work on the EDT, look at javax.swing.Timer instead, as Uhlen suggested.

Following the answer by Chinmay Kanchi, you need to create a feeling of animation. As mentioned above in comments by Uhlen you should use Swing's Timer when working on EDT. To give you example of how to use Timer. Lets assume we have a panel and we want it to slide open on e.g. a button click, thus we need to animate it sliding open by increasing its size. Below is an example showing pretty much how you would use Timer to do the operations.
this.extendingTimer = new Timer(0, new ActionListener()
{
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
{
//assume sliding is vertical
int value = maximumHeight;
//make sure the size will not be bigger then allowed maximum
if(currentExtensionSize + extensionRate >= value)
{
currentExtensionSize = value;
stopExtending();
}
else
currentExtensionSize += extensionRate;
setSize(new Dimension(maximumWidth, currentExtensionSize));
}
});
extendingTimer.setInitialDelay(0);
extendingTimer.setDelay(100);
extendingTimer.setRepeats(true);

int lineCount = 0; //global
// timer calls the below
xLocation = (*a)[a->size()-1] * timeSoFar / duration ;
if(xLocation > (*a)[lineCount+1]){
lineCount++;
}
double m = ((*b)[lineCount+1] - (*b)[lineCount])/((*a)[lineCount+1]-(*a)[lineCount]);
double yIntercept = (*b)[lineCount]-m*(*a)[lineCount];
yLocation = m * xLocation + yIntercept;
xLocation = (yLocation - yIntercept) / m;
this is in c++ and using vectors but its the theory we want. This allows for multiple lines not just one.