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[BILLDOWS]

I am using the Draw_Filled_Polygon routine to write to an RGB Virtual Screen many thousands of times (5k-20k polygons, sometimes the same shape and sometimes different) with each draw being of a different colour (up to 20000 colours). This works fine but depending on the code used there does seem to be a limit (typically around 5000 or 10000) draw executions after which the error 'Unable to create polygon' occurs.

In 'the old days' I seem to remember the need to delete drawn regions and wondered if the above behaviour may be memory related? I can probably find an alternate way around the problem if I have to. I am not using the latest compiler version at present.

Any ideas would be gratefully received.

Thanks, Bill

[LitusSaxonicum]

Bill,

This is just a guess. As there is a filled polygon method in the GDI, it is probable that FTN95's routine is simply a wrapper for the GDI function (Paul may know). In that case, it is unlikely that Clearwin is allocating memory for polygons and creating a memory leak. Also, you aren't going to get any benefit from writing your own polygon fill routine, using (say) the code in Angell and Griffith's book, as this is likely to be slower.

Have you tried 'printing' the polygon vertex coords to a file to see if they are all valid? You may need to do 2 passes through your routine while testing, once to generate and store the coords without drawing, and once with drawing (which will produce the crash, but at least you will know which polygon did it - with one pass, you won't see the last few polygons in your file).

It seems more likely to me that there is something about your cords that prevents forming a polygon than something in the GDI (such as the limit on number of polygon vertices of 8192 that existed in Win 98/Me but has since been lifted).

Eddie

[BILLDOWS]

Hi, Thanks for the quick response.

I had printed out the co-ordinates exactly as per your suggestion and all are fine. Most polygons have 4 or 5 vertices at most - running on Windows 7 by the way.

Thank again.. Bill

[PaulLaidler]

ClearWin+ keeps a pen for each colour so memory overflow is a real possibility. Can you monitor memory usage?. I have had a quick look and cannot see any leaks so far.

[BILLDOWS]

Thanks Paul, very useful.

I think I can overcome this by using 2 virtual screens and limiting the colours on each to (say) 256 - but I didnt want to go that route if there might be some other reason for the problem [the screen - colour variables - are used for reference purposes]

Thanks again - Bill

[PaulLaidler]

It might be worth my adding an internal limit to the number of pens that ClearWin+ keeps before discarding old ones. I just need to be reasonably sure that this is the problem.

Can you get some idea from the Windows Task Manager about memory usage?

[DanRRight]

Can you post small example of using virtual screen (for smooth 2D plotting i suppose)?

[LitusSaxonicum]

Paul,

Is this related to the limit on number of GDI handles per process (65536 - or less on Windows 2000)? If so, a useful test would be to execute on Windows 2000 and see if it went wrong earlier. That assumes Bill has access to a Win 2000 machine - not likely perhaps. If it were the GDI handles limit, then there isn't a limit on the number of pens per se, but it rather depends on what other GDI objects there are using up the available handles. In any case, Bill might be advised to use fewer colour steps.

Does OpenGL suffer from a related limitation?

Eddie

[BILLDOWS]

Paul / Dan - Example below, here writing to the real screen. Memory does not seem to be the issue though?...

Example code (here to the real screen) below:

Blows up at 9000 odd - but other versions (the original) blew up earlier.

c
c simplified program to recreate error when using a large number of different colours
c
winapp
options(intl)
include <windows.ins>
external quiter
common /closing/ ictrl1,ictrl2,iquit
dimension ix(4),iy(4)
c
c set up whole screen as RGB graphics area and colour black
c
ixscrn = clearwin_info@('screen_width')
iyscrn = clearwin_info@('screen_depth')
idscrn = 1
iwiw = winio@('%ww[naked]%`gr&',ixscrn,iyscrn,idscrn)
iwiw = winio@('%lw',ictrl1)
call use_rgb_colours@(1,1)
call draw_filled_rectangle@(0,0,ixscrn,iyscrn,0)
c
c set up button / parameter to close program
c
iquit = 0
ixbut = ixscrn*0.75
iybut2 = iyscrn * 0.83
iwiw = winio@('%sp&',ixbut,iybut2)
iwiw = winio@('%ww[naked,topmost]%^tt[Quit]&',quiter)
iwiw = winio@('%lw',ictrl2)
c
c
c
call select_graphics_object@(1)
call perform_graphics_update@
c
c draw a 250 x 200 grid of rectangles each in a new colour (indexed by k)
c
c (we draw them as polygons as the original program involved both
c rectangles and parallelograms)
c
k = 0
do 10 i = 1,250
ix(1) = (i-1)*6 + 1
ix(2) = ix(1) + 5
ix(3) = ix(2)
ix(4) = ix(1)
do 20 j = 1,200
k = k + 1
c
c convert integer k to standard RGB match by extracting
c the 3 8-bit codes for blue, green and red
c (note the error occurs in the same place if we use kol = k)
c
kolb = mod(k,256)
kolg = mod(intl(k/256),256)
kolr = int(k/256**2)
kol = rgb@(kolr,kolg,kolb)
c
c set up 4 corners of rectangular polygon and draw
c
iy(1) = (j-1)*5 + 1
iy(2) = iy(1)
iy(3) = iy(1) + 4
iy(4) = iy(3)
call draw_filled_polygon@(ix,iy,4L,kol)
c
c
c
20 continue
call perform_graphics_update@
10 continue
c
c hold image on screen until quit button is activated
c
100 if(iquit .eq. 1)then
ictrl1 = 0L
call window_update@(ictrl1)
else
call yield_program_control@(y_temporarily)
goto 100
endif
end
c
ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc
c call back for quit
ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc
c
subroutine quiter
common /closing/ ictrl1,ictrl2,iquit
iquit = 1
ictrl2 = 0L
call window_update@(ictrl2)
return
end

[PaulLaidler]

The problem is solved if I prevent ClearWin+ from saving the HBRUSH for the colour. As it is, it is running out of space for Windows resources (i.e. a system failure).

I will fix this and let you know when a new DLL is available for download.
Probably early next week.

[BILLDOWS]

Dear Paul,

What service - Many thanks for finding the problem and for the future solution.

All the best

Bill

Someone might be asking - Why does he need to use 20,000 colours and as the idea might help someone else!:

On the real screen I build up a drawing of a 3D picture of a loaded shipping container containing crates and drums etc loaded in an efficient way drawn using a SMALL number of colours. There can be up to 20,000 items and space on screen obviously does not allow detailed labels on these. The user can use the mouse to point at any of these and as the mouse moves over each 'crate' a detailed description is displayed on screen. To identify which crate is being pointed at, the same picture is drawn on a virtual screen but using a unique colour (1-20000) thus providing a reference.

[PaulLaidler]

I have uploaded a beta version of salflibc.dll to http://www.silverfrost.com/beta/salflibc.exe

This is a self-extracting archive. Remember to keep a backup of the current DLL. You may need to have Administrator privileges in order to copy the DLL and LIB to your FTN95 folder.

[BILLDOWS]

Many thanks for this Paul.

I have used the DLL with a ready compiled version of the real program (compiler 5.5) that was failing 'reliably' with a given dataset (5000+ colours) and all worked fine.

However when I extended (doubled) the number of loaded units (10,000 colours) once again the program crashed out in a similar fashion as before. I will have to examine which routines in addition to draw_polygon I am calling repeatedly and try to produce a further simple program to illustrate the problem to see if there is any solution.

Thanks again.. Bill

ps. If you can indicate via PM or otherwise how I can under Windows 7 identify which type of resources visible under Windows Task manager I should be looking at to spot up-coming problems that would be most helpful.

[PaulLaidler]

I would try something like "GDI objects".

In the current fix I have avoided the ClearWin+ cache for HBRUSH objects.
If you also have a large number of HPENs (for drawing lines) then the problem will occur there also.

[BILLDOWS]

Thanks Paul, very useful to know what to look for as it shows that I hit the Windows 10000 GDI objects limit at exactly the point of crashing.

I will have to look carefully at the code to see what additional routines I use a large number of times and see if any of these might be avoided (doubtful) or substituted and report back to this thread in due course.

Thanks again, Bill