KB10540 - Please explain the DK IncrementalPaint functionality. What are the advantages?

The repainting (rendering/drawing) of vector layers with TatukGIS products is performed in two phases - the draft presentation phase and final presentation phase. The draft phase presents a fast draw of only the vector geometry and the portion of the style features that are of a nature which can be drawn very fast. The draft presentation omits difficult-to-render features such as labels, charts, fancy polygon fills, and some symbols. The final presentation phase presents a detailed paint of the full map features, with complete vector style features, labels, etc. The two stage drawing process does not apply to raster image layers.

If the IncrementalPaint feature is turned ON, only the quick, phase 1 draft presentation of vector layers is performed while the map is in movement (scrolling), and the final phase 2 paint procedure is performed only after the map movement has ceased for long enough to generate the full map presentation. The result can be a dramatic improvement in speed with large data sets, particularly those with many layers or a large raster image file. If the IncrementalPaint is turned OFF, the map is repainted in full detail while the map movement is in progress, with significantly greater consumption of computational resources and loss of speed.

Whereas the default overall IncrementalPaint setting is ON, the default IncrementalPaint setting at each of the individual layer levels is OFF. The result is fast performance during moves but only blank space is redrawn at the viewer window margins. Therefore, IncrementalPaint must also be activated at the layer level for each of the layers to be presented in IncrementalPaint mode.

The ability to also make the IncrementalPaint determination at the layer level allows for a hybrid presentation, such as to maximize performance (speed) by performing the draft paint of only the most important layer(s) during map moves. For example, only a street map layer might be set to paint incrementally during map moves triggered by the real time GPS tracking of a moving object at close zoom levels. For best performance with large raster images, leave IncrementalPaint turned ON at the overall level but turned OFF for the layer containing the raster image.