ArrayList of PImage eating away at RAM

Programming Questions

matthiasc..

ArrayList of PImage eating away at RAM

in Programming Questions • 1 year ago

Hi there!

I have recenlty begun learning processing and even though I know my way around in programming (I did a bit of java and plenty of python before) I am somewhat stuck on an issue.

I have three PNG files, they are ~158KB each but they are very broad. Within them are animations. It's a single-row animation meaning that the first frame is to the utmost left and the last frame (within the animation) is to the utmost right.

When I loaded in these three images using my AnimatedSprite class I got a OutOfMemory exception. I did manage to remedy it but with my code these 3 animations use up 294MB of RAM.

One modification I made (which loads in the frames on-the-run) cuts that down to 260MB RAM. It's not anything else that causes this because if I run the application without those animations the RAM usage drops to about ~60MB which is acceptable.

Here is my AnimatedSprite class (NOTE If I remove tmpImage = null I get the memory exception) [~294MB]:

public class AnimatedSprite {
private int X;
private int Y;
public int numberOfFrames;
private int frameHeight;
private int frameWidth;
private int frameAnimationRate;
private int animationCounter;
public int lastFrameTime;
private String spritePath;
private PImage tmpImage;
public ArrayList<PImage> animationFrames = new ArrayList<PImage>();
AnimatedSprite(int xpos, int ypos, int frameW, int frameH, int frames, int animationRate, String path) {
this.X = xpos;
this.Y = ypos;
this.frameWidth = frameW;
this.frameHeight = frameH;
this.numberOfFrames = frames;
this.frameAnimationRate = animationRate;
this.spritePath = path;
loadFrames();
this.lastFrameTime = millis();
}
private void loadFrames() {
println("Load frames called");
tmpImage = loadImage(this.spritePath);
for (int i = 0; i < this.numberOfFrames; i++) {
animationFrames.add(i, tmpImage.get((frameWidth * i), 0, frameWidth, frameHeight));
}
tmpImage = null;
}
void renderMe() {
if (millis() - this.lastFrameTime >= this.frameAnimationRate) {
this.animationCounter = ++this.animationCounter % this.animationFrames.size();
this.lastFrameTime = millis();
}
image(this.animationFrames.get(animationCounter), this.X, this.Y);
}
void moveMe(int xtrans, int ytrans) {
this.X += xtrans;
this.Y = ytrans;
}
int getX() { return this.X; }
int getY() { return this.Y; }
int getFrameWidth() { return this.frameWidth; }
int getFrameHeight() { return this.frameHeight; }
int getNumberOfFrames() { return this.numberOfFrames; }
int getDisplayTime() { return this.frameAnimationRate; }
int getLastTime() { return this.lastFrameTime; }
void setLastTime(int m) { this.lastFrameTime = m; }
ArrayList<PImage> getAnimationFrames() { return this.animationFrames; }
}

This is how I call it:

AnimatedSprite idleseq_0;
AnimatedSprite idleseq_1;
AnimatedSprite idleseq_2;
void setup() {
size(640, 480);
idleseq_0 = new AnimatedSprite(100, 100, 188, 365, 105, 20, "idle_seq0.png");
idleseq_1 = new AnimatedSprite(288, 100, 188, 365, 120, 20, "idle_seq1.png");
idleseq_2 = new AnimatedSprite(420, 100, 188, 365, 120, 20, "idle_seq2.png");
}
void draw() {
background(255);
idleseq_0.renderMe();
idleseq_1.renderMe();
idleseq_2.renderMe();
}

I personally think it has something do to with storing each frame as a PImage in an arraylist. Hence I made a modification which loads ("PImage.get()") each frame on the fly. However the decrease, memory wise, is only 34MB which is why there must be another reason...

Here is my modified AnimatedSprite class:

public class AnimatedSprite {
private int X;
private int Y;
public int numberOfFrames;
private int frameHeight;
private int frameWidth;
private int frameAnimationRate;
private int animationCounter;
public int lastFrameTime; //the time at which the last animation was drawn (not last as in LAST of all frames but rather last as in "latest")
private String spritePath;
private PImage tmpImage;
public ArrayList<PImage> animationFrames = new ArrayList<PImage>();
AnimatedSprite(int xpos, int ypos, int frameW, int frameH, int frames, int animationRate, String path) {
this.X = xpos;
this.Y = ypos;
this.frameWidth = frameW;
this.frameHeight = frameH;
this.numberOfFrames = frames;
this.frameAnimationRate = animationRate;
this.spritePath = path;
loadFrames();
this.lastFrameTime = millis();
}
private void loadFrames() {
println("Load frames called");
tmpImage = loadImage(this.spritePath);
// for (int i = 0; i < this.numberOfFrames; i++) {
// animationFrames.add(i, tmpImage.get((frameWidth * i), 0, frameWidth, frameHeight));
// }
// tmpImage = null;
}
void renderMe() {
if (millis() - this.lastFrameTime >= this.frameAnimationRate) {
//this.animationCounter = ++this.animationCounter % this.animationFrames.size();
this.animationCounter = ++this.animationCounter % this.numberOfFrames;
this.lastFrameTime = millis();
}
//image(this.animationFrames.get(animationCounter), this.X, this.Y);
image(this.tmpImage.get((frameWidth * animationCounter), 0, frameWidth, frameHeight), this.X, this.Y);
}
void moveMe(int xtrans, int ytrans) {
this.X += xtrans;
this.Y = ytrans;
}
int getX() { return this.X; }
int getY() { return this.Y; }
int getFrameWidth() { return this.frameWidth; }
int getFrameHeight() { return this.frameHeight; }
int getNumberOfFrames() { return this.numberOfFrames; }
int getDisplayTime() { return this.frameAnimationRate; }
int getLastTime() { return this.lastFrameTime; }
void setLastTime(int m) { this.lastFrameTime = m; }
ArrayList<PImage> getAnimationFrames() { return this.animationFrames; }
}

If I did something extremely stupid, let me know...I actually hope I did because that means its solveable ;)

Replies(3)

PhiLho

Re: ArrayList of PImage eating away at RAM

1 year ago

188*365*120*4*3 / 1024 / 1024
Ans = 94.235229492

120 frames of 188*365 images, 4 bytes per pixel, 3 images = 94 MB approximatively.
For some reason, you keep the original image as well, so it doubles the figure.
Add some general overhead, a bit of pre-garbage collection data, and you attain the numbers you show.
Nothing suspicious here... You can increase the memory usable by sketches in the preference dialog of Processing.

Getting the sprite on the fly from the sprite sheet is a good idea, but I am suspecting the get() creates intermediary images on the fly, so even if they are short lived, they make lot of garbage, hence the little improvement you see.
We would need an image() version where we can specify an offset in the image in addition to the width and height.

matthiasc..

Re: ArrayList of PImage eating away at RAM

1 year ago

Oh yes...arithmetic. Heh, I should have known.

But as for your comment that I keep the original image...I set it to null in the second (improved) AnimatedSprite class. Is that what you are referring to? Or is there a other (better) way of deallocating data?

I do not mean to ask for code or anything but if you, or anyone else for that matter, have any suggestions on how to improve this (memory wise primarily) I'd be happy to hear it!

Thank you for your help thus far!

PhiLho

Re: ArrayList of PImage eating away at RAM

1 year ago

Yes, I was referring to the original values, before you set the PImage to null.
And for suggestion, as I wrote, increase the memory allocated to your sketch.
Alternatively, you can try and copy the pixels from the sprite sheet (for one of the sprites) to the sketch area, to simulate the missing image(img, x, y, xPos, yPos, width, height) (where xPos/yPos would be the position of the image to copy from the sheet).

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