Method for best Graphics API performance

Question

We're writing a Flex application with a custom UIComponent
that draws many (possibly thousands) simple shapes on the screen
using the Graphics API (lineTo(), drawEllipse(), etc.). I'm
wondering what will yield the best performance: should we pass
around the Graphics object from the main canvas area, and render
using that directly, or instantiate a Shape object for each
line/ellipse/rectangle drawn, and use the member Graphics object in
each Shape, to draw itself?
We'll sacrifice code cleanliness for performance. Any ideas?
thanks,
Chris

Answer 1

"czcollier" <[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:g6n4cr$nms$[email protected]..
> We're writing a Flex application with a custom
UIComponent that draws many
> (possibly thousands) simple shapes on the screen using
the Graphics API
> (lineTo(), drawEllipse(), etc.). I'm wondering what will
yield the best
> performance: should we pass around the Graphics object
from the main
> canvas
> area, and render using that directly, or instantiate a
Shape object for
> each
> line/ellipse/rectangle drawn, and use the member
Graphics object in each
> Shape,
> to draw itself?
>
> We'll sacrifice code cleanliness for performance. Any
ideas?
I haven't done this, but someone once asked a similar
question on the
flexCoders group. One of the Adobe engineers suggested the op
could get
best performance by only drawing so much at a time, then
converting the
result to a bitmap.
HTH;
Amy