[Fixed] Large lag when using point picking tool

[RobH616]

Hi Daniel,

I have a rather off issue and I wonder if you have any bright ideas.

I've been processing point cloud data with a fairly slow machine, the HP ProBook 6550b with an i3 processor and 4Gb of ram. Processing the data was cumbersome at best so I upgraded to a better machine, the HP ZBook 15 with an i7 processor and 32 Gb of ram.

In general importing, exporting and manipulating the data is alot faster as you would expect. When I use the "point picking tool" or the "pick rotation center" tool on my old slow laptop, it takes a few seconds (maybe 10s) to show information about a point or change the rotation origin. However when I use these tools on my new laptop CloudCompare becomes unresponsive for a long time (processing in the back ground). If I leave it running it will eventually redefine the rotation center etc. But this takes an unresonable amount of time. Furthermore if I segment out a tiny portion of the large point cloud and then 'de-select' the larger point cloud and redefine the rotation center, this works fine in a short amount of time.

I'm lost, I have no idea why these tools would work perfectly on a much slower machine but have issues on the Zbook 15

Do you have any ideas ?

FYI (1) the same point clouds were tested on the old and new machine
FYI (2) I'm working from the ZIP versions of v2.5.2 on both machines. I have not yet tried using the installation file yet (as I do not have admin rights and IT are not around today) but either way I'm not sure how this could make a huge difference.

Many Thanks,
Rob

[daniel]

This is definitely a graphic card issue. We use the OpenGL picking mechanism for this function (i.e. we simply ask the graphic card to determine the picked point... and we wait).

If you have a fast GPU it should answer after a few seconds in the worst case. But if you have a weak GPU such as Intel chipsets (or a buggy driver), it can become very slow.

So:

• what is your new laptop graphic card?
• have you updated the driver?

[RobH616]

Hi Daniel,

Thank you as always for the speedy response.

This laptop as standard has an Intel(R) HD graphics 4600 onboard. This particular one is fitted with a 2Gb NVIDIA Quadro K2100M. Maybe it's possible that cloudcompare is using the onboard card instead of the external one (???).

I'm not sure about the driver updates. I'm a PhD student and I got this laptop through the university so I can't update the drivers myself. I'll get intouch with IT and run an update.

Many Thanks!
Rob

[daniel]

What is displayed in the console when starting CloudCompare? Somewhere the graphic card manufacturer should appear.

On this kind of laptops, you can sometimes switch between one card and the other (especially if the laptop is unplugged). You may have to force the NVidia one enabled (at least for CC).

[RobH616]

Hi Daniel,

Yeh, your correct. In the console when CC opens it says:

" Graphics card manufacturer: Intel "

Is there any way to force it to use the NVIDIA card ?

Best Regards,
Rob

[daniel]

If you have a laptop with NVidia Optimus technology, it seems that you can do it in several ways:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/gaming- ... -gpus.html

[RobH616]

Hi Daniel,

I apologize I haven't replied sooner. In truth I fixed the issue, had to rush off to a meeting and then completely forgot about replying in this thread.

You were completely right, I forced CC to use the quadro K2100M graphics card by using the NVIDA control panel to set recommended settings for which GPU CC should use. This fixed the issues instantly, CC now runs beautifully.

Thanks again,
Rob

[daniel]

No problem ;)