gdi+ Graphics::DrawImage really slow~~

Question

I am using a GDI+ Graphic to draw a 4000*3000 image to screen, but it is really slow. It takes about 300ms. I wish it just occupy less than 10ms.

Bitmap *bit         


        

Answer 1

Explore the impact of explicitly setting the interpolation mode to NearestNeighbor (where, in your example, it looks like interpolation is not actually needed! But 300ms is the kind of cost of doing high-quality interpolation when no interpolation is needed, so its worth a try)

Another thing to explore is changing the colour depth of the bitmap.

Answer 2

I have made some researching and wasn't able to find a way to render images with GDI/GDI+ more faster than

Graphics.DrawImage/DrawImageUnscaled

and at the same time simple like it.

Till I discovered

ImageList.Draw(GFX,Point,Index)

and yeah it's really so fast and simple.

Answer 3

You have a screen of 4000 x 3000 resolution? Wow!

If not, you should draw only the visible part of the image, it would be much faster...

[EDIT after first comment] My remark is indeed a bit stupid, I suppose DrawImage will mask/skip unneeded pixels.

After your edit (showing StretchDIBits), I guess a possible source of speed difference might come from the fact that StretchDIBits is hardware accelerated ("If the driver cannot support the JPEG or PNG file image" is a hint...) while DrawImage might be (I have no proof for that!) coded in C, relying on CPU power instead of GPU's one...

If I recall correctly, DIB images are fast (despite being "device independent"). See High Speed Win32 Animation: "use CreateDIBSection to do high speed animation". OK, it applies to DIB vs. GDI, in old Windows version (1996!) but I think it is still true.

[EDIT] Maybe Bitmap::GetHBITMAP function might help you to use StretchDIBits (not tested...).

Answer 4

/* First sorry for ma English, and the code is partly in polish, but it's simple to understand. I had the same problem and I found the best solution. Here it is.

Dont use: Graphics graphics(hdc); graphics.DrawImage(gpBitmap, 0, 0); It is slow.

Use: GetHBITMAP(Gdiplus::Color(), &g_hBitmap) for HBITMAP and draw using my function ShowBitmapStretch().

You can resize it and it is much faster! Artur Czekalski / Poland

*/

//--------Global-----------
Bitmap *g_pGDIBitmap; //for loading picture
int gRozXOkna, gRozYOkna; //size of working window
int gRozXObrazu, gRozYObrazu; //Size of picture X,Y
HBITMAP g_hBitmap = NULL; //for displaying on window
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
int ShowBitmapStretch(HDC hdc, HBITMAP hBmp, int RozX, int RozY, int RozXSkal, int RozYSkal, int PozX, int PozY) 
{
    if (hBmp == NULL) return -1;
    HDC hdc_mem = CreateCompatibleDC(hdc); //utworzenie kontekstu pamięciowego
    if (NULL == hdc_mem) return -2;
    //Trzeba połączyć BMP z hdc_mem, tzn. umieścić bitmapę w naszym kontekście pamięciowym
    if (DeleteObject(SelectObject(hdc_mem, hBmp)) == NULL) return -3; 

    SetStretchBltMode(hdc, COLORONCOLOR); //important! for smoothness
    if (StretchBlt(hdc, PozX, PozY, RozXSkal, RozYSkal, hdc_mem, 0, 0, RozX, RozY, SRCCOPY) == 0) return -4;

    if (DeleteDC(hdc_mem) == 0) return -5;
    return 0; //OK
}
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------
void ClearBitmaps(void)
{
    if (g_hBitmap) { DeleteObject(g_hBitmap);  g_hBitmap = NULL; }
    if (g_pGDIBitmap) { delete g_pGDIBitmap;  g_pGDIBitmap = NULL; }
}
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------
void MyOpenFile(HWND hWnd, szFileName)
{
    ClearBitmaps(); //Important!
    g_pGDIBitmap = new Bitmap(szFileName); //load a picture from file

    if (g_pGDIBitmap == 0) return;
    //---Checking if picture was loaded
    gRozXObrazu = g_pGDIBitmap->GetWidth();
    gRozYObrazu = g_pGDIBitmap->GetHeight();
    if (gRozXObrazu == 0 || gRozYObrazu == 0) return;

    //---Uworzenie bitmapy do wyświatlaia; DO IT ONCE HERE!
    g_pGDIBitmap->GetHBITMAP(Gdiplus::Color(), &g_hBitmap); //creates a GDI bitmap from this Bitmap object
    if (g_hBitmap == 0) return;

    //---We need to force the window to redraw itself
    InvalidateRect(hWnd, NULL, TRUE);
    UpdateWindow(hWnd);
}
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------
void MyOnPaint(HDC hdc, HWND hWnd) //in case WM_PAINT; DO IT MANY TIMES
{
    if (g_hBitmap)
    {
        double SkalaX = 1.0, SkalaY = 1.0; //scale
        if (gRozXObrazu > gRozXOkna || gRozYObrazu > gRozYOkna || //too big picture, więc zmniejsz; 
           (gRozXObrazu < gRozXOkna && gRozYObrazu < gRozYOkna)) //too small picture, można powiększyć 
        {
            SkalaX = (double)gRozXOkna / (double)gRozXObrazu; //np. 0.7 dla zmniejszania; FOR DECREASE
            SkalaY = (double)gRozYOkna / (double)gRozYObrazu; //np. 1.7 dla powiększania; FOR INCREASE
            if (SkalaY < SkalaX) SkalaX = SkalaY; //ZAWSZE wybierz większe skalowanie, czyli mniejszą wartość i utaw w SkalaX
        }

    if (ShowBitmapStretch(hdc, g_hBitmap, gRozXObrazu, gRozYObrazu, (int)(gRozXObrazu*SkalaX), (int)(gRozYObrazu*SkalaX), 0, 0, msg) < 0) return;

Answer 5

Unfortunately when I had a similar problem, I found that GDI+ is known to be much slower than GDI and not generally hardware accelerated, but now Microsoft have moved on to WPF they will not come back to improve GDI+!

All the graphics card manufacturers have moved onto 3D performance and don't seem interested in 2D acceleration, and there's no clear source of information on which functions are or can be hardware accelerated or not. Very frustrating because having written an app in .NET using GDI+, I am not happy to change to a completely different technology to speed it up to reasonable levels.

Answer 6

Just a thought; instead of retrieving the width and height of the image before drawing, why not cache these values when you load the image?