WPF 2D Performance

Question

Hello all,

Currently I'm busy with a GIS app for a company. We decided to go with WPF as it's rendering engine makes all the graphics manipulations and other cool stuff easier and faster to implement. I do, however, have a problem. On rendering a couple of thousand polygons on the map performance lags, especially when I need to drag a "rubberband" line across the screen. The graphics is jittery and not smooth at all. I tried considering GDI+ as a valid alternative but I'm sure that that might take more time to implement. Does anyone have a solution for me. It wll be well appreciated.

Thanks

Nathanael

christian de wet · Answer

Thank you Mahesh, I've done some samples with GDI+, and there is definately a performance and memory improvement. With GDI+, I can draw approx 210 000 polygons in 1min 10s. With WPF however, it takes so long that I need to eventually just cancel the process. I just hope Microsoft fix this in the next version. WPF provides functionality that far outwieghs that of GDI+, so an improvement it's rendering processes will definately help. But I'll take a look if there are any new versions. Thanks for your support. Regards, Nathanael

Mahesh Chand · Answer

I have noticed the performance of WPF and I am afraid, GDI+ may not be that faster either. You may try some small samples and compare WPF and GDI+. However, development in GDI+ is probably simpler or same as WPF but with limitations. For example, you don't have events for rectangles in GDI+. You have to manually keep track of all of that. GDI+ simply is a wrapper around native GDI written in C++. Either you will have to dig C++ libraries (GDI), which will make your life hell coding wise or wait till next version of WPF. I am sure Microsoft folks are working on improvements of WPF rendering.