Fast interactive graphics
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg77485] Fast interactive graphics
- From: "Steve Luttrell" <steve at _removemefirst_luttrell.org.uk>
- Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2007 07:19:01 -0400 (EDT)
- Organization: Customer of PlusNet plc (http://www.plus.net)
In version 6 I want to do interactive graphics where I use a controller to manipulate the shape of a curved 2-dimensional manifold (for instance). This is a type of interaction with Mathematica that should be of interest to lots of people. The main problem that I have is that the redraw time after each controller movement is quite long. I need continuous feedback so that I can immediately see the effect of making various controller movements, so using ContinuousAction->False in Manipulate (for instance) doesn't solve this problem. I have tried various shortcuts such as skeletonising the graphic during updates so that it redraws quicker, but it is still too slow, and will get worse for the more complicated graphics that I really want to work on. As a general solution it would be great if it was possible to control the redrawing of graphics so that only those parts that need to be redrawn are actually redrawn, with the user taking responsibility for any consequential errors in the accumulated graphics rendering. Here I don't want to simply zoom the graphic to limit the rendered region, because I want to interactively see the impact of my manipulations in the context of the whole graphic. Does anyone know a way of imposing this type of control (see above) on graphics rendering, or is it not actually possible in Mathematica? I think the answer is no, but I just want to make sure that I haven't overlooked a trick here. Steve Luttrell West Malvern, UK