kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 07/31/2010 08:20 AM, jean-pierre charras wrote:
> Dick Hollenbeck a écrit :
>   
>> On 07/28/2010 07:04 AM, Dick Hollenbeck wrote:
>>     
>>> On 07/27/2010 02:31 PM, jean-pierre charras wrote:
>>>       
>>>> To compile with boost::polygon, run cmake with option -DUSE_BOOST_POLYGON_LIBRARY=ON
>>>> (see changelog).
>>>>   
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> Jean-Pierre:
>>>
>>>
>>> I found the boost library to require only 40% of the time of kbool to
>>> refill several zones on a fairly complicated board.  Even on a *very*
>>> fast computer this board takes 11 seconds to refill all zones using
>>> kbool.  Using boost::polygon it takes only 4 seconds.
>>>   
>>>       
>> However, it looks like screen drawing of a zone, by using the middle
>> mouse button to zoom in and out is faster when using kbool, indeed
>> considerably faster.
>>
>> Dick
>>
>>     
> Dick,
> I committed the last boost::polygon version, from:
> http://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/trunk/boost/polygon
> boost::polygon might be in the 1.44 boost version (coming soon, I believe)
>
> This version seems fix some issues (at least one, critical for me)
> Could you test it and see if artifacts are gone (I did not see such issues with my boards).
>   

NO change.  The artifacts are still there on the 1st complicated board
(call it board1).

I did try a less complicated board (call it board2).  However on board2,
the Kbool library seems to no longer to work.  It is not filling a zone
even after going away trying for 3 minutes.  The zone comes back empty,
i.e. not filled.  Some kind of regression in my opinion even using the
Kbool library.

This board2 I made/built many months ago OK, and now I cannot get PCBNEW
to even fill one of the zones, using Kbool build.  Are you sure the
loading of the "zone parameters" from disk code is not broken or
changed?  Or can there be a seriously gross memory leak?  There is no
way on my super fast computer this little 4 layer board should take 3
minutes to fill just *one* zone (empty!).  The board2 has about 4 zones
in total.  Just before filling that one zone, I said "clear zone fill".

The error is so gross it seems it should be easy to figure out what this
regression is.

I may have not started PCBNEW fresh to load board2, may have been
bouncing back and forth between the boards from within the same session
of PCBNEW.

> About screen drawing, I do not see why it is slow with boost.
>   

Still slow with the first (complicated board), even when showing only a
single layer.

> Just i noticed boost creates slightly more corners than kbool.
> (Perhaps links from the external polygon outline and its holes are slightly different)
> The difference is very small (1 to 2 per cent) and cannot explain this issue.
> But this difference could be sufficient to make you graphic card run out of its memory cache.
> When happens (on my previous computer, it happened with the video board demo) the screen drawing
> (for the given polygon that have too much corners) is considerably slower.
>
> Can you test it on an other board.
>   

On board2 the drawing speed is OK using boost, but I cannot say that the
zone is filled correctly, because when I went to compare it to Kbool I
discovered that Kbool build cannot even fill the zone after trying for 3
minutes.


Don't release anything yet.  :)


If you cannot duplicate any of these kbool problems, I will have to go
into a careful test mode and document my keystrokes, compare zones to
old gerbers, try PCBNEW after a fresh load from disk, etc.  But this is
a serious time commitment that I don't want to make if I don't have to. 
You should start by looking at the basic Kbool functionality again on
some of your old boards and see if you can induce strange fill behavior
by doing reloads without exiting PCBNEW.

Let me know if you cannot find any problems with the kbool build.  That
is where I think we should focus at first, find this regression if it is
one, or an old bug that was never discovered.  I am running a 64 bit
build on stock Ubuntu Lucid using all standard package based libraries.

> Thanks.
>
> Also, your new intermediate netlist format is very promising.
>   

Thanks.