Adding lots of surfaces quickly - Importer plugin

[monster]

Hi Folks,

What's the quickest way to add a lot (like 250,000 or so) surfaces to an AC3D object in an importer plugin.

Currently I use something like;
List *surfaces = NULL;
...
Surface* s = new_surface();
// Set up surface
list_add_item_head(&surfaces,s);
...
object_add_surfaces(object,surfaces);
But it seems that list_add_item[_head] is relatively slow and gets slower the more surfaces I add.

Is there something like ac_object_add_vertices_from_float_array, but for surfaces that would let me pre-allocate a bunch of surfaces and add them to my object all in one hit?

Cheers.

[Andy]

list_add_item_head(&surfaces,s);

is very quick.

Prototype void object_add_surfaces(ACObject *ob, List *l);

adds each surface to the start of the surface list with list_add_item_head. (it sets the surface's owner for each too)

It looks like you have optimal code here. Perhaps there is something else causing a slowdown?

Andy

[monster]

Ah, yes. Thanks for the reply.
It was;
ac_object_get_vertex_at_index
That was taking the time.
If I run through and cache them all, it's much quicker.
But still, is there a quicker way to get a list of all the Vertex pointers?
I've created them with;
ac_object_add_vertices_from_float_array

[monster]

No worries, fixed it by accessing the vertex List directly.
A 512x512 tga loaded, smoothed and 130,000 surfaces created and added in about a second. Bargain!

Thanks for your help.
Please ignore my stupidness!

Anybody want a (very simple) heightmap importer?

http://monster.prohosting.com/terrain_capture.png

[Andy]

Gorgeous!

>is there a quicker way to get a list of all the Vertex pointers?

You can use:

Prototype ListData *list_create_array(List *l, int numitems); // free with myfree()

on a list. It returns an array of the list-data pointers e.g. give this the list of an object's vertices. Each item in the array will then be the address of each vertex.

free the block of memory with myfree().

Andy

[monster]

Hurrah! Even quicker, and even better.

Cheers.

[LiveWire]

wow, somone else was working on a hightmap maker also, lol
anyways, id love to have that plugin, please post a link where we can download it

also, IF your plugin is 'open source' id realy like to see how you made it :wink:

good job.

Philip

[monster]

Well, I wouldn't say I was "working on" a heightmap importer. I just hacked one together quickly to allow me to generate a quick landscape for some vertex/fragment shader development that I'm doing.

It's available as a "bonus feature" of the Ogre mesh export plugin. I've got a bit of tidying up to do then I'll update the archive and post the URL. I'll also stick the source-code in the archive.

Stay tuned!

[monster]

You can get the OGRE Plugin with bonus Height Map importer from;
http://www.green-eyed-monster.com/
The source code's available from the same place.