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At any rate, Listing 39.1 for this chapter shows a version of DrawHorizontalLineList that uses memset to draw each scan line of the polygon in a single call. When linked to Chapter 38’s test program, Listing 39.1 increases pure drawing speed (disregarding edge tracing and other nondrawing time) by more than an order of magnitude over Chapter 38’s draw-pixel-based code, despite the fact that Listing 39.1 requires a large (in this case, the Compact) data model. Listing 39.1 works fine with Borland C++, but may not work with other compilers, for it relies on the aforementioned interaction between memset and the selected memory model.

Implementation | Total Polygon Filling Time | DrawHorizontal LineList | ScanEdge | FillConvex Polygon
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
Drawing to display memory in mode 13h
C floating point scan/DrawPixel drawing code from Chapter 38, (small model) | 11.69 | 5.80 seconds (50% of total) | 5.86 (50%) | 0.03 (<1%)
C floating point scan/memset drawing (Listing 39.1, compact model) | 6.64 | 0.49 (7%) | 6.11 (92%) | 0.04 (<1%)
C integer scan/memset drawing (Listing 39.1 & Listing 39.2, compact model) | 0.60 | 0.49 (82%) | 0.07 (12%) | 0.04 (7%)
C integer scan/ASM drawing (Listing 39.2 & Listing 39.3, small model) | 0.45 | 0.36 (80%) | 0.06 (13%) | 0.03 (7%)
ASM integer scan/ASM drawing (Listing 40.3 & Listing 40.4,small model) | 0.42 | 0.36 (86%) | 0.03 (7%) | 0.03 (7%)
Drawing to system memory
C integer scan/memset drawing (Listing 39.1 & Listing 39.2,compact model) | 0.31 | 0.20 (65%) | 0.07 (23%) | 0.04 (13%)
ASM integer scan/ASM drawing (Listing 39.3 & Listing 39.4,small model) | 0.13 | 0.07 (54%) | 0.03 (23%) | 0.03 (23%)
All times are in seconds, as measured with Turbo Profiler on a 20-MHz cached 386 with no math coprocessor installed. Note that time spent in main() is not included. C code was compiled with Borland C++ with maximum optimization (-G -O -Z -r -a); assembly language code was assembled with TASM. Percentages of combined times are rounded to the nearest percent, so the sum of the three percentages does not always equal 100.
Table 39.1 Polygon fill performance.

LISTING 39.1 L39-1.C

    /* Draws all pixels in the list of horizontal lines passed in, in
       mode 13h, the VGA’s 320×200 256-color mode. Uses memset to fill
       each line, which is much faster than using DrawPixel but requires
       that a large data model (compact, large, or huge) be in use when
       running in real mode or 286 protected mode.
       All C code tested with Borland C++. */

    #include <string.h>
    #include <dos.h>
    #include “polygon.h”

    #define SCREEN_WIDTH    320
    #define SCREEN_SEGMENT  0×A000

    void DrawHorizontalLineList(struct HLineList * HLineListPtr,
          int Color)
    {
       struct HLine *HLinePtr;
       int Length, Width;
       unsigned char far *ScreenPtr;

       /* Point to the start of the first scan line on which to draw */
       ScreenPtr = MK_FP(SCREEN_SEGMENT,
             HLineListPtr->YStart * SCREEN_WIDTH);

       /* Point to the XStart/XEnd descriptor for the first (top)
          horizontal line */
       HLinePtr = HLineListPtr->HLinePtr;
       /* Draw each horizontal line in turn, starting with the top one and
          advancing one line each time */
       Length = HLineListPtr->Length;
       while (Length-- > 0) {
          /* Draw the whole horizontal line if it has a positive width */
          if ((Width = HLinePtr->XEnd - HLinePtr->XStart + 1) > 0)
             memset(ScreenPtr + HLinePtr->XStart, Color, Width);
          HLinePtr++;                /* point to next scan line X info */
          ScreenPtr += SCREEN_WIDTH; /* point to next scan line start */
       }
    }

At this point, I’d like to mention that benchmarks are notoriously unreliable; the results in Table 39.1 are accurate only for the test program, and only when running on a particular system. Results could be vastly different if smaller, larger, or more complex polygons were drawn, or if a faster or slower computer/VGA combination were used. These factors notwithstanding, the test program does fill a variety of polygons of varying complexity sized from large to small and in between, and certainly the order of magnitude difference between Listing 39.1 and the old version of DrawHorizontalLineList is a clear indication of which code is superior.

Anyway, Listing 39.1 has the desired effect of vastly improving drawing time. There are cycles yet to be had in the drawing code, but as tracing polygon edges now takes 92 percent of the polygon filling time, it’s logical to optimize the tracing code next.

#### Fast Edge Tracing

There’s no secret as to why last chapter’s ScanEdge was so slow: It used floating point calculations. One secret of fast graphics is using integer or fixed-point calculations, instead. (Sure, the floating point code would run faster if a math coprocessor were installed, but it would still be slower than the alternatives; besides, why require a math coprocessor when you don’t have to?) Both integer and fixed-point calculations are fast. In many cases, fixed-point is faster, but integer calculations have one tremendous virtue: They’re completely accurate. The tiny imprecision inherent in either fixed or floating-point calculations can result in occasional pixels being one position off from their proper location. This is no great tragedy, but after going to so much trouble to ensure that polygons don’t overlap at common edges, why not get it exactly right?

In fact, when I tested out the integer edge tracing code by comparing an integer-based test image to one produced by floating-point calculations, two pixels out of the whole screen differed, leading me to suspect a bug in the integer code. It turned out, however, that’s in those two cases, the floating point results were sufficiently imprecise to creep from just under an integer value to just over it, so that the ceil function returned a coordinate that was one too large.

| Floating point is very accurate—but it is not precise. Integer calculations, properly performed, are.

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Graphics Programming Black Book © 2001 Michael Abrash