RE: [ROOT] drawing speed in online monitoring

From: Anton Fokin (anton.fokin@smartquant.com)
Date: Sat Feb 17 2001 - 13:01:05 MET


Hi guys,

Although I suppose to be a banker, I am stilll working with on-line DAQ
applications based on ROOT :) So here are a few words about ROOT on-line
performance.

Well, my statement is: at present ROOT is not optimized for on-line data
taking/displaying, although works reasonably well in such applications in
general.

An example:

What we typically do in DAQ/on-line applications:

- collect N events
- update a set of 256x256 2D COLZ histograms in a canvas

Easy. Practically it means several H->Fill(x, y, 1); calls before a
graphical update.  The point is that on the average you increase only
several bins out of millions. Most likely these bins do not go above max of
a histogram, so that COLZ scheme stays the same and only those several bins
change colors (or not).

So.. instead of updating only a few point in a canvas, ROOT recalculates all
COLZ levels and redraws all histograms. Consequently instead of a few
milliseconds you spend tens of seconds for one screen update.

I understand that a smart on-line update requires a number of improvements,
but this is somehow a must if you want to promote ROOT in the on-line world.
The rule of on-line displays is : update only what has been changed, leave
the rest untouched, don't waste time.

Regards,
Anton

http://www.smartquant.com



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