is it possible to profile my processing code to find where my performance traps are?

Is there a tool to do this?

I don't know if you're using Windows or OS X, but on OS X, I've found that most IDE profilers either don't work or crash.  Luckily, things are even easier there - you can just use Shark if you have Apple's developer's tools.  You just have to go into Java settings (somewhere in Utilities, usually) and add a string to the VM options for applets, something like -agentlib:Shark, then open up the applet in a web page, pop open Shark, and it should show up on the list of things to profile.  I think there's some way to add a VM argument when you run stuff from within Processing, in which case you can do the same thing without exporting and viewing it in your browser first.

BTW, the Eclipse plugin PhiLho referred to is called TPTP.  It seems like it's got a lot of features and stuff, but to be perfectly honest, I've never been able to get it to run without crashing, and I've tried it on OS X, Windows, and Linux.  Maybe you'll have better luck, though.

Netbeans also has a pretty good profiler, I'm told.

For OSX use Eclipse and Shark (free with registering to apple's devel site).