PThreading: A framework for multithreaded drawing in Processing

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PThreading: A framework for multithreaded drawing in Processing

Getting started, motivation, download and example usage available from Github.

Natively, Processing runs on a single thread, which can lead to poor performance on draw-heavy sketches.

In short, the framework consists of two classes: PThread and PThreadManager. Override the PThread class with Processing code and then add instances of your new class to a PThreadManager; this will run the instances as threads that draw into your Processing sketch in a safe multithreaded manner.

Example (11 threads; 5k particles each):

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image.jpg1535×827 1.07 MB

…from this sketch code (I’m leaving out the implementation of the Gravicubes class here – full example available here):

    PThreadManager manager;

	public void setup() {
		manager = new PThreadManager(this);
		manager.addThread(Gravicubes.class, 11, 60, 5000); // 11 threads targetting 60fps; 5000 is arg for # particles
	}

	public void draw() {
		fill(255, 100);
		rect(0, 0, width, height);
		manager.draw();
	}
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