Running less important preparation-threads in the background

Programming Questions

bejoschac..

Running less important preparation-threads in the background

in Programming Questions • 3 years ago

Hi,

I do have objects which mutate in my sketch and each mutation creates a new set of images for animation.

While the animations are rather quick (-as they are just displaying different images of the array-) the preparation of the animation takes considerable time.

Because my objects change during the cause of the sketch, I can not pre-load all animations. So, what I'd like to do is to pre-create a few animations, then launch the sketch (which displays something with rather high frame-rate) and at the same time "prepare" other animations which will be used in the draw() routine once finished.

I do want to run this sketch rather "smoothly" and the preparation-thread doesn't have priority. How can I do this?

I remember to have seen a demo-sketch on "pre-loading" images which does a similar thing, but I've forgotten where that was...

Replies(7)

bejoschac..

Re: Running less important preparation-threads in the background

3 years ago

Ah, the sketch I was seeking was the demo-sketch for requestImage() in processing itself. However, this seems to work with loading of images only. Can I do something similar with a "subthread" in my sketch?

bejoschac..

Re: Running less important preparation-threads in the background

3 years ago

Any comments on that one? A "no it is not possible" answer would be helpful as well, if somebody could give me this defenite answer...

kooogy

Re: Running less important preparation-threads in the background

3 years ago

certainly seems possible (if i'm reading you correctly)

requestImage effectively uses a flag that says 'i am finished'. your subthread could do the same with, say, a global variable. then your draw would be something like

if (subthread_has_finished_flag) {
// update data
data = result_of_subthread;
}
draw data;

bejoschac..

Re: Running less important preparation-threads in the background

3 years ago

But how do I start a subthread (from the void draw()) as its own process ?

I've an object (class with functions etc.) and in the draw() I go through the arraylist of my obejcts, drawing & modifying each. Under certain circumstances, a new object is created and added to the arraylist. However, creating the object takes say 2sec, and during this time, the whole sketch "freezes".

kooogy

Re: Running less important preparation-threads in the background

3 years ago

java threads?

http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-04-1996/jw-04-threads.html
http://www.javabeginner.com/learn-java/java-threads-tutorial

and processing specific (there are a few more on old web if you search for 'implements runnable'):
http://processing.org/discourse/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1119238260

bejoschac..

Re: Running less important preparation-threads in the background

3 years ago

Thanks. I'll have a look into it. One of my problems is, that I'm offline at home and don't have much "spare time" when online...

Thus, all "online" references are very nice, but not always very helpful, if I can't download them quickly. Is there a good "downloadable" documentation of Java which would be useful for Processing?

bejoschac..

Re: Re: Running less important preparation-threads in the background

3 years ago

I checked it out and it works nicely. Thanks for pointing me in the correct direction.

However, I think somebody (more knowledgeable than me) should put (simple) threading into the demo-section of processing. A simple "prepare stuff in the background" sample. I do have one (now), based on the old forum entry, but it would be reassuring to have a well-documented and "not-outdates" "clean" example...

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