Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!rpi!batcomputer!eric
From: eric@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Eric Fielding)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Drawing lots of triangles
Message-ID: <9561@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Date: 17 Jan 90 23:53:12 GMT
Reply-To: eric@geology.tn.cornell.edu
Distribution: na
Organization: Department of Geological Sciences, Cornell University
Lines: 45

I was glad to see all of the helpful suggestions about how to draw boxes fast,
but I have a different problem that seems to me much harder to optimize under
PS.  I have a picture that consists almost entirely of 180,000 filled triangles.
(This is the output from a 3D rendering program.)  Here is a sample of one
of the files:

%!
%%BoundingBox: 0 0 612 792
%%EndComments
initgraphics
8.5 72 mul 0 translate 90 rotate 72 1000 div dup scale
2.0 setmiterlimit 60 45 {add .5 mul} setscreen
/NP {newpath} def /SD {setdash} def /SG {99 div setgray} def /MT {moveto} def
/LT {lineto} def /CP {closepath} def /GS {gsave} def /FL {fill} def
/GR {grestore} def /SK {stroke} def /LW {setlinewidth} def
/PLP {1024 1 true [1024 0 0 1 0 0] {<8080808080808080>} imagemask} def
/WLP {1024 1 true [1024 0 0 1 0 0] {<8888888888888888>} imagemask} def
erasepage
[... other graphics stuff deleted, triangles follow]
 NP 8761 6576 MT
8781 6584 LT
8782 6574 LT
8761 6576 LT
CP GS 99 SG FL GR
NP 8761 6576 MT
8760 6587 LT
8781 6584 LT
8761 6576 LT
CP GS 99 SG FL GR
NP 8740 6581 MT
8760 6587 LT
8761 6576 LT
8740 6581 LT
CP GS 99 SG FL GR
... about 180,000 times

Is there anything obviously inefficient about the way this is being printed? I
see from the 'boxes' discussion that I could redefine the NP, MT, LT, etc. to
be one letter, but that is a small savings.  Any other suggestions?  (I don't
have the source the graphics package, but I could get it, or use post-processing
under either Ultrix or VMS.)

				++Eric Fielding
eric@geology.tn.cornell.edu
eric@crnlthry.bitnet