Programmatic Navigation very slow

Question

Hi,
I'm developing an application that uses an external touch sensor (does not go through Windows Mouse event queue) to navigate inside Explorer.
However, it seems as though the Application.ActiveMapDisplay.ZoomTo(Viewpoint) function executes very slowly, sometimes taking > 50-75ms.
Is there a better way to programmatically move the globe? or is there some way to speed this up?

Thanks.

NevinFry · Answer

James,

I'm not sure what level of performance you expect (or require for your application) but your results (40-80 milliseconds) look very good - running your test code I found the human eye (mine at least) is barely able to keep up with display changes at those speeds. You might find you get slightly better performance with the ESRI Imagery basemap due to differences in the way different basemap sources are cached.

As you add in additional layers of data you will find those display times begin to slow down - so the previous advice regarding spatial indexes, etc is still relevant. you seem to be working in 3D which uses a WGS84 geographic coordinate system - for best performance you should consider reprojecting any data you wish to display in Explorer (in 3D) into that coordinate system.

Regards

Mike

Hi Mike,
So I think the issue here (and what is different with ArcExplorer than say, 3DAnalyst), is that ZoomTo is a "synchronous" update operation. What I mean by that is that ZoomTo() doesn't return until it has redrawn the scene. 
What is also interesting is that movements using the mouse clearly don't have this slowdown, so I assume that the internal mouse navigation is using another path for position updating.

-- James

MichaelBranscomb · Answer

James,

I'm not sure what level of performance you expect (or require for your application) but your results (40-80 milliseconds) look very good - running your test code I found the human eye (mine at least) is barely able to keep up with display changes at those speeds. You might find you get slightly better performance with the ESRI Imagery basemap due to differences in the way different basemap sources are cached.

As you add in additional layers of data you will find those display times begin to slow down - so the previous advice regarding spatial indexes, etc is still relevant. you seem to be working in 3D which uses a WGS84 geographic coordinate system - for best performance you should consider reprojecting any data you wish to display in Explorer (in 3D) into that coordinate system.

Regards

Mike

SimonFisher · Answer

James,

Not sure if this will help, but you may want to try adding this;

//Calling suspend display temporarily suspends updates to the map display
IDisposable suspendedDisplay = ESRI.ArcGISExplorer.Application.Application.ActiveMapDisplay.SuspendDisplay();

and once done;

//Calling dispose resumes updates to the map display
suspendedDisplay.Dispose();