Additional 35% Performance Increase in WebGL for 3D Floor Plans

October 24, 2014

Shaders now use explicit vertex attribute locations in 3D Wayfinder. This and other improvements gave us approximately 35% increase in FPS (frames per second) in WebGL. Change is more noticeable with larger floor plans.

Tests were done with 2 PC-s, the same one we used before:

  1. Laptop 1. Low-end laptop from Samsung: Quad-Core 1 GHz, 4GB RAM, Integrated video card AMD Radeon HD 8250, Windows 8
  2. Desktop 1. AMD Phenom II X2 550, 2 cores, 3.1GHz, 4GB RAM, video card AMD Radeon HD 6670, Windows 7

 

The same 4 floor plans were tested as previously:

  • Demo project – 2 floors, 43k solid faces and 6k transparent faces
  • Science center building – no locations entered, 520k solid faces and 13k transparent faces
  • Shopping mall 1 – 5 floors, 96k solid faces and 18k transparent faces
  • Shopping mall 2 – 7 floors, 246k solid faces and 27k transparent faces

 

 

We got following results:

  FPS in Internet Explorer FPS in Firefox FPS in Google Chrome
  Before Now Change Before Now Change Before Now Change
Demo project
Laptop 1 6,0 7,7 28% 10 13,0 30% 20 24 20%
Desktop 1 3*  –  – 30 30 Capped to 30 FPS 30 30 Capped to 30 FPS
Science center
Laptop 1 7 8,8 26% 15 15 0% 24 28,3 18%
Desktop 1 2*  –  – 30 30 Capped to 30 FPS 30 30 Capped to 30 FPS
Shopping mall 1
Laptop 1 2 2,4 20% 3 5,4 80% 7 8,5 21%
Desktop 1 2,5*  –  – 13 22 69% 25 30 20%
Shopping mall 2
Laptop 1 0,8 1,0 25% 1,7 3,0 76% 3,4 4,6 35%
Desktop 1 2*  –  – 7 12 71% 11 17,5 59%

 

Where marked with * IE used software rendering for WebGL. There for we didn’t measure IE in this test with PC1.

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3D Wayfinder Performance Test on Browsers

October 20, 2014

We have tested 3D Wayfinder with different browsers and different PC-s. Main criteria which we were measuring is FPS (frames per second). The goal was to check how fast is WebGL in most common browsers.

We are limiting FPS to 30, as human eye mostly don’t recognize the difference above 30 FPS. For example most movies are 24 or 30 FPS. Limiting FPS will allow to add more resources to other javascripts running.

Internet Explorer 11 supports WebGL, but under Windows 7 in some cases IE uses software rendering, which is much lower in speed than rendering directly in hardware.

 

PC-s we used for testing were:

  1. Laptop 1. Low-end laptop from Samsung: Quad-Core 1 GHz, 4GB RAM, Integrated video card AMD Radeon HD 8250, Windows 8
  2. Laptop 2. High-end laptop from Samsung: i7-3635QM (2.4ghz),16 GB RAM, video card HD8870M / HD4000 – 1GB GDDR5 and Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti, Windows 8
  3. PC 1. AMD Phenom II X2 550, 2 cores, 3.1GHz, 4GB RAM, video card AMD Radeon HD 6670, Windows 7
  4. PC 2. Intel i7-4770k 3,5GHz, 16 GB RAM, video Gtx 780 ti matrix platinum edition

 

Browser version were the last ones at the time:

Internet Explorer – 11

Firefox – 32

Chrome – 37

 

We tested 4 projects:

  • Demo project – 2 floors, 43k solid faces and 6k transparent faces
  • Science center building – no locations entered, 520k solid faces and 13k transparent faces
  • Shopping mall 1 – 5 floors, 96k solid faces and 18k transparent faces
  • Shopping mall 2 – 7 floors, 246k solid faces and 27k transparent faces

 

 

We got following results:

  FPS in Internet Explorer FPS in Firefox FPS in Google Chrome
Demo project      
Laptop 1 6 10 20
Laptop 2 16 10 24
PC 1 3* 30 30
PC 2 30 30 30
Science center      
Laptop 1 7 15 24
Laptop 2 22 18 30
PC 1 2* 30 30
PC 2 30 30 30
Shopping mall 1      
Laptop 1 2 3 7
Laptop 2 5 6 20
PC 1 2,5 13,5 25
PC 2 11 23 30
Shopping mall 2      
Laptop 1 0,8 1,7 3,4
Laptop 2 2,5* 3,8 10,6
PC 1 2 7 11
PC 2 5 12 28

 

Where marked with * IE used software rendering.

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New Shaders in 3D Wayfinder

October 10, 2014

There is now specular shader implemented in 3D Wayfinder. This will give more life-like look for materials like metal, stone, plastic etc.

Specular shaders create the bright highlights that you would see on a glossy surfaces. It is mimicking the reflection of light sources. At this time the shader is not configurable, but we will add advanced configuration option in near future.

Below is the 3D floor plan model of Ahhaa Science Center. On the left there is the building with specular shader applied and on the right side the roof has no specular.

With specular shader
3D Wayfinder without specular shader
Without specular shader

For setting specular shader in 3D Wayfinder CMS, go to “Materials” and then “Media”. There you can select “Specular” for every material you have in your project.

3D_Wayfinder_selecting_specular_shader

We are continuously improving appearance of 3D floor plans. Following development tasks will also include implementing other shaders like:
1) SSAO – Screen Space Ambient Onclusion. This will make shadows for corners and edges.
2) Reflection – reflection of skybox and other rounding details.
3) Normal map. With normal map it is easy to create heterogeneous surfaces and terrains. For example this helps to make grass or wall with bricks.

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