--- title: Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book, Special Edition author: Michael Abrash date: '1997-07-01' identifier: - scheme: ISBN text: 1576101746 publisher: The Coriolis Group category: 'Web and Software Development: Game Development,Web and Software Development: Graphics and Multimedia Development' chapter: '37' pages: 695-706 --- ## Chapter 37 -- Dead Cats and Lightning Lines ### Optimizing Run-Length Slice Line Drawing in a Major Way As I write this, the wife, the kid, and I are in the throes of yet another lightning-quick transcontinental move, this time to Redmond, Washington, to work for You Know Who. Moving is never fun, but what makes it worse for us is the pets. Getting them into kennels and to the airport is hard; there's always the possibility that they might not be allowed to fly because of the weather; and, worst of all, they might not make it. Animals don't usually end up injured or dead, but it does happen. In a (not notably successful) effort to cheer me up about the prospect of shipping my animals, a friend told me the following story, which he swears actually happened to a friend of his. I don't know—to me, it has the ring of an urban legend, which is to say it makes a good story, but you can never track down the person it really happened to; it's always a friend of a friend. But maybe it is true, and anyway, it's a good story. This friend of a friend (henceforth referred to as FOF), worked in an air-freight terminal. Consequently, he handled a lot of animals, which was fine by him, because he liked animals; in fact, he had quite a few cats at home. You can imagine his dismay when, one day, he took a kennel off the plane to find that the cat it carried was quite thoroughly dead. (No, it wasn't resting, nor pining for the fjords; this cat was bloody *deceased*.) FOF knew how upset the owner would be, and came up with a plan to make everything better. At home, he had a cat of the same size, shape, and markings. He would substitute that cat, and since all cats treat all humans with equal disdain, the owner would never know the difference, and would never suffer the trauma of the loss of her cat. So FOF drove home, got his cat, put it in the kennel, and waited for the owner to show up—at which point, she took one look at the kennel and said, "This isn't my cat. My cat is dead." As it turned out, she had shipped her recently deceased feline home to be buried. History does not record how our FOF dug himself out of this one. Okay, but what's the point? The point is, if it isn't broken, don't fix it. And if it is broken, maybe that's all right, too. Which brings us, neat as a pin, to the topic of drawing lines in a serious hurry. ### Fast Run-Length Slice Line Drawing In the last chapter, we examined the principles of run-length slice line drawing, which draws lines a run at a time rather than a pixel at a time, a run being a series of pixels along the major (longer) axis. It's time to turn theory into useful practice by developing a fast assembly version. Listing 37.1 is the assembly version, in a form that's plug-compatible with the C code from the previous chapter. **LISTING 37.1 L37-1.ASM** ```nasm ; Fast run-length slice line drawing implementation for mode 0x13, the VGA's ; 320x200 256-color mode. ; Draws a line between the specified endpoints in color Color. ; C near-callable as: ; void LineDraw(int XStart, int YStart, int XEnd, int YEnd, int Color) ; Tested with TASM SCREEN_WIDTH equ 320 SCREEN_SEGMENT equ 0a000h .model small .code ; Parameters to call. parms struc dw ? ;pushed BP dw ? ;pushed return address XStart dw ? ;X start coordinate of line YStart dw ? ;Y start coordinate of line XEnd dw ? ;X end coordinate of line YEnd dw ? ;Y end coordinate of line Color db ? ;color in which to draw line db ? ;dummy byte because Color is really a word parms ends ; Local variables. AdjUp equ -2 ;error term adjust up on each advance AdjDown equ -4 ;error term adjust down when error term turns over WholeStep equ -6 ;minimum run length XAdvance equ -8 ;1 or -1, for direction in which X advances LOCAL_SIZE equ 8 public _LineDraw _LineDraw proc near cld push bp ;preserve caller's stack frame mov bp,sp ;point to our stack frame sub sp, LOCAL_SIZE ;allocate space for local variables push si ;preserve C register variables push di push ds ;preserve caller's DS ; We'll draw top to bottom, to reduce the number of cases we have to handle, ; and to make lines between the same endpoints always draw the same pixels. mov ax,[bp].YStart cmp ax,[bp].YEnd jle LineIsTopToBottom xchg [bp].YEnd,ax; swap endpoints mov [bp].YStart,ax movbx, [bp].XStart xchg [bp].XEnd,bx mov [bp].XStart,bx LineIsTopToBottom: ; Point DI to the first pixel to draw. mov dx,SCREEN_WIDTH mul dx ;YStart * SCREEN_WIDTH mov si,[bp].XStart mov di,si add di,ax ;DI = YStart * SCREEN_WIDTH + XStart ; = offset of initial pixel ; Figure out how far we're going vertically (guaranteed to be positive). mov cx,[bp].YEnd sub cx,[bp].YStart ;CX = YDelta ; Figure out whether we're going left or right, and how far we're going ; horizontally. In the process, special-case vertical lines, for speed and ; to avoid nasty boundary conditions and division by 0. mov dx,[bp].XEnd sub dx,si ;XDelta jnz NotVerticalLine ;XDelta == 0 means vertical line ;it is a vertical line ;yes, special case vertical line mov ax,SCREEN_SEGMENT mov ds,ax ;point DS:DI to the first byte to draw mov al,[bp].Color VLoop: mov [di],al add di,SCREEN_WIDTH dec cx jns VLoop jmp Done ; Special-case code for horizontal lines. align 2 IsHorizontalLine: mov ax,SCREEN_SEGMENT mov es,ax ;point ES:DI to the first byte to draw mov al,[bp].Color mov ah,al ;duplicate in high byte for word access and bx,bx ;left to right? jns DirSet ;yes sub di,dx ;currently right to left, point to left ; end so we can go left to right ; (avoids unpleasantness withright to ; left REP STOSW) DirSet: mov cx,dx inc cx ;# of pixels to draw shr cx,1 ;# of words to draw rep stosw ;do as many words as possible adc cx,cx rep stosb ;do the odd byte, if there is one jmp Done ; Special-case code for diagonal lines. align 2 IsDiagonalLine: mov ax,SCREEN_SEGMENT mov ds,ax ;point DS:DI to the first byte to draw mov al,[bp].Color add bx,SCREEN_WIDTH ;advance distance from one pixel to next DLoop: mov [di],al add di,bx dec cx jns DLoop jmp Done align 2 NotVerticalLine: mov bx,1 ;assume left to right, so XAdvance = 1 ;***leaves flags unchanged*** jns LeftToRight ;left to right, all set neg bx ;right to left, so XAdvance = -1 neg dx ;|XDelta| LeftToRight: ; Special-case horizontal lines. and cx,cx ;YDelta == 0? jz IsHorizontalLine ;yes ; Special-case diagonal lines. cmp cx,dx ;YDelta == XDelta? jz IsDiagonalLine ;yes ; Determine whether the line is X or Y major, and handle accordingly. cmp dx,cx jae XMajor jmp YMajor ; X-major (more horizontal than vertical) line. align 2 XMajor: mov ax,SCREEN_SEGMENT mov es,ax ;point ES:DI to the first byte to draw and bx,bx ;left to right? jns DFSet ;yes, CLD is already set std ;right to left, so draw backwards DFSet: mov ax,dx ;XDelta sub dx,dx ;prepare for division div cx ;AX = XDelta/YDelta ; (minimum # of pixels in a run in this line) ;DX = XDelta % YDelta mov bx,dx ;error term adjust each time Y steps by 1; add bx,bx ; used to tell when one extra pixel should be mov [bp].AdjUp,bx ; drawn as part of a run, to account for ; fractional steps along the X axis per ; 1-pixel steps along Y mov si,cx ;error term adjust when the error term turns add si,si ; over, used to factor out the X step made at mov [bp].AdjDown,si ; that time ; Initial error term; reflects an initial step of 0.5 along the Y axis. sub dx,si ;(XDelta % YDelta) - (YDelta * 2) ;DX = initial error term ; The initial and last runs are partial, because Y advances only 0.5 for ; these runs, rather than 1. Divide one full run, plus the initial pixel, ; between the initial and last runs. mov si,cx ;SI = YDelta mov cx,ax ;whole step (minimum run length) shr cx,1 inc cx ;initial pixel count = (whole step / 2) + 1; ; (may be adjusted later). This is also the ; final run pixel count push cx ;remember final run pixel count for later ; If the basic run length is even and there's no fractional advance, we have ; one pixel that could go to either the initial or last partial run, which ; we'll arbitrarily allocate to the last run. ; If there is an odd number of pixels per run, we have one pixel that can't ; be allocated to either the initial or last partial run, so we'll add 0.5 to ; the error term so this pixel will be handled by the normal full-run loop. add dx,si ;assume odd length, add YDelta to error term ; (add 0.5 of a pixel to the error term) test al,1 ;is run length even? jnz XMajorAdjustDone ;no, already did work for odd case, all set sub dx,si ;length is even, undo odd stuff we just did and bx,bx ;is the adjust up equal to 0? jnz XMajorAdjustDone ;no (don't need to check for odd length, ; because of the above test) dec cx ;both conditions met; make initial run 1 ; shorter XMajorAdjustDone: mov [bp].WholeStep,ax ;whole step (minimum run length) mov al,[bp].Color ;AL = drawing color ; Draw the first, partial run of pixels. rep stosb ;draw the final run add di,SCREEN_WIDTH ;advance along the minor axis (Y) ; Draw all full runs. cmp si,1 ;are there more than 2 scans, so there are ; some full runs? (SI = # scans - 1) jna XMajorDrawLast ;no, no full runs dec dx ;adjust error term by -1 so we can use ; carry test shr si,1 ;convert from scan to scan-pair count jnc XMajorFullRunsOddEntry ;if there is an odd umber of scans, ; do the odd scan now XMajorFullRunsLoop: mov cx,[bp].WholeStep ;run is at least this long add dx,bx ;advance the error term and add an extra jnc XMajorNoExtra ; pixel if the error term so indicates inc cx ;one extra pixel in run sub dx,[bp].AdjDown ;reset the error term XMajorNoExtra: rep stosb ;draw this scan line's run add di,SCREEN_WIDTH ;advance along the minor axis (Y) XMajorFullRunsOddEntry: ;enter loop here if there is an odd number ; of full runs mov cx,[bp].WholeStep ;run is at least this long add dx,bx ;advance the error term and add an extra jnc XMajorNoExtra2 ; pixel if the error term so indicates inc cx ;one extra pixel in run sub dx,[bp].AdjDown ;reset the error term XMajorNoExtra2: rep stosb ;draw this scan line's run add di,SCREEN_WIDTH ;advance along the minor axis (Y) dec si jnz XMajorFullRunsLoop ; Draw the final run of pixels. XMajorDrawLast: pop cx ;get back the final run pixel length rep stosb ;draw the final run cld ;restore normal direction flag jmp Done ; Y-major (more vertical than horizontal) line. align 2 YMajor: mov [bp].XAdvance,bx ;remember which way X advances mov ax,SCREEN_SEGMENT mov ds,ax ;point DS:DI to the first byte to draw mov ax,cx ;YDelta mov cx,dx ;XDelta sub dx,dx ;prepare for division div cx ;AX = YDelta/XDelta ; (minimum # of pixels in a run in this line) ;DX = YDelta % XDelta mov bx,dx ;error term adjust each time X steps by 1; add bx,bx ; used to tell when one extra pixel should be mov [bp].AdjUp,bx ; drawn as part of a run, to account for ; fractional steps along the Y axis per ; 1-pixel steps along X mov si,cx ;error term adjust when the error term turns add si,si ; over, used to factor out the Y step made at mov [bp].AdjDown,si ; that time ; Initial error term; reflects an initial step of 0.5 along the X axis. sub dx,si ;(YDelta % XDelta) - (XDelta * 2) ;DX = initial error term ; The initial and last runs are partial, because X advances only 0.5 for ; these runs, rather than 1. Divide one full run, plus the initial pixel, ; between the initial and last runs. mov si,cx ;SI = XDelta mov cx,ax ;whole step (minimum run length) shr cx,1 inc cx ;initial pixel count = (whole step / 2) + 1; ; (may be adjusted later) push cx ;remember final run pixel count for later ; If the basic run length is even and there's no fractional advance, we have ; one pixel that could go to either the initial or last partial run, which ; we'll arbitrarily allocate to the last run. ; If there is an odd number of pixels per run, we have one pixel that can't ; be allocated to either the initial or last partial run, so we'll add 0.5 to ; the error term so this pixel will be handled by the normal full-run loop. add dx,si ;assume odd length, add XDelta to error term test al,1 ;is run length even? jnz YMajorAdjustDone ;no, already did work for odd case, all set sub dx,si ;length is even, undo odd stuff we just did and bx,bx ;is the adjust up equal to 0? jnz YMajorAdjustDone ;no (don't need to check for odd length, ; because of the above test) dec cx ;both conditions met; make initial run 1 ; shorter YMajorAdjustDone: mov [bp].WholeStep,ax ;whole step (minimum run length) mov al,[bp].Color ;AL = drawing color mov bx,[bp].XAdvance ;which way X advances ; Draw the first, partial run of pixels. YMajorFirstLoop: mov [di],al ;draw the pixel add di,SCREEN_WIDTH ;advance along the major axis (Y) dec cx jnz YMajorFirstLoop add di,bx ;advance along the minor axis (X) ; Draw all full runs. cmp si,1 ;# of full runs. Are there more than 2 ; columns, so there are some full runs? ; (SI = # columns - 1) jna YMajorDrawLast ;no, no full runs dec dx ;adjust error term by -1 so we can use ; carry test shr si,1 ;convert from column to column-pair count jnc YMajorFullRunsOddEntry ;if there is an odd number of ; columns, do the odd column now YMajorFullRunsLoop: mov cx,[bp].WholeStep ;run is at least this long add dx,[bp].AdjUp ;advance the error term and add an extra jnc YMajorNoExtra ; pixel if the error term so indicates inc cx ;one extra pixel in run sub dx,[bp].AdjDown ;reset the error term YMajorNoExtra: ;draw the run YMajorRunLoop: mov [di],al ;draw the pixel add di,SCREEN_WIDTH ;advance along the major axis (Y) dec cx jnz YMajorRunLoop add di,bx ;advance along the minor axis (X) YMajorFullRunsOddEntry: ;enter loop here if there is an odd number ; of full runs mov cx,[bp].WholeStep ;run is at least this long add dx,[bp].AdjUp ;advance the error term and add an extra jnc YMajorNoExtra2 ; pixel if the error term so indicates inc cx ;one extra pixel in run sub dx,[bp].AdjDown ;reset the error term YMajorNoExtra2: ;draw the run YMajorRunLoop2: mov [di],al ;draw the pixel add di,SCREEN_WIDTH ;advance along the major axis (Y) dec cx jnz YMajorRunLoop2 add di,bx ;advance along the minor axis (X) dec si jnz YMajorFullRunsLoop ; Draw the final run of pixels. YMajorDrawLast: pop cx ;get back the final run pixel length YMajorLastLoop: mov [di],al ;draw the pixel add di,SCREEN_WIDTH ;advance along the major axis (Y) dec cx jnz YMajorLastLoop Done: pop ds ;restore caller's DS pop di pop si ;restore C register variables mov sp,bp ;deallocate local variables pop bp ;restore caller's stack frame ret _LineDraw endp end ``` #### How Fast Is Fast? Your first question is likely to be the following: Just how fast is Listing 37.1? Is it optimized to the hilt or just pretty fast? The quick answer is: It's *fast*. Listing 37.1 draws lines at a rate of nearly 1 million pixels per second on my 486/33, and is capable of still faster drawing, as I'll discuss shortly. (The heavily optimized AutoCAD line-drawing code that I mentioned in the last chapter drew 150,000 pixels per second on an EGA in a 386/16, and I thought I had died and gone to Heaven. Such is progress.) The full answer is a more complicated one, and ties in to the principle that if it is broken, maybe that's okay—and to the principle of looking before you leap, also known as profiling before you optimize. When I went to speed up run-length slice lines, I initially manually converted the last chapter's C code into assembly. Then I streamlined the register usage and used `REP STOS` wherever possible. Listing 37.1 is that code. At that point, line drawing was surely faster, although I didn't know exactly how much faster. Equally surely, there were significant optimizations yet to be made, and I was itching to get on to them, for they were bound to be a lot more interesting than a basic C-to-assembly port. Ego intervened at this point, however. I wanted to know how much of a speed-up I had already gotten, so I timed the performance of the C code and compared it to the assembly code. To my horror, I found that I had not gotten even a two-times improvement! I couldn't understand how that could be—the C code was decidedly unoptimized—until I hit on the idea of measuring the maximum memory speed of the VGA to which I was drawing. Bingo. The Paradise VGA in my 486/33 is fast for a single display-memory write, because it buffers the data, lets the CPU go on its merry way, and finishes the write when display memory is ready. However, the maximum rate at which data can be written to the adapter turns out to be no more than one byte every microsecond. Put another way, you can only write one byte to this adapter every 33 clock cycles on a 486/33. Therefore, no matter how fast I made the line-drawing code, it could never draw more than 1,000,000 pixels per second in 256-color mode in my system. The C code was already drawing at about half that rate, so the potential speed-up for the assembly code was limited to a maximum of two times, which is pretty close to what Listing 37.1 did, in fact, achieve. When I compared the C and assembly implementations drawing to normal system (nondisplay) memory, I found that the assembly code was actually four times as fast as the C code. > ![](images/i.jpg) > In fact, Listing 37.1 draws VGA lines at about 92 percent of the maximum > possible rate in my system—that is, it draws very nearly as fast as the > VGA hardware will allow. All the optimization in the world would get me > less than 10 percent faster line drawing—and only if I eliminated all > overhead, an unlikely proposition at best. The code isn't fully > optimized, but so what? Now it's true that faster line-drawing code would likely be more beneficial on faster VGAs, especially local-bus VGAs, and in slower systems. For that reason, I'll list a variety of potential optimizations to Listing 37.1. On the other hand, it's also true that Listing 37.1 is capable of drawing lines at a rate of 2.2 million pixels per second on a 486/ 33, given fast enough VGA memory, so it should be able to drive almost any non-local-bus VGA at nearly full speed. In short, Listing 37.1 is very fast, and, in many systems, further optimization is basically a waste of time. Profile before you optimize. #### Further Optimizations Following is a quick tour of some of the many possible further optimizations to Listing 37.1. The run-handling loops could be unrolled more than the current two times. However, bear in mind that a two-times unrolling gets more than half the maximum unrolling benefit with less overhead than a more heavily unrolled loop. BX could be freed up in the Y-major code by breaking out separate loops for X advances of 1 and -1. DX could be freed up by using AH as the counter for the run loops, although this would limit the maximum line length that could be handled. The freed registers could be used to keep more of the whole-step and error variables in registers. Alternatively, the freed registers could be used to implement more esoteric approaches like unrolling the Y-major inner loop; such unrolling could take advantage of the knowledge that only two run lengths are possible for any given line. Strangely enough, on the 486 it might also be worth unrolling the X-major inner loop, which consists of `REP STOSB`, because of the slow start-up time of `REP` relative to the speed of branching on that processor. Special code could be implemented for lines with integral slopes, because all runs are exactly the same length in such lines. Also, the X-major code could try to write an aligned word at a time to display memory whenever possible; this would improve the maximum possible performance on some 16-bit VGAs. One weakness of Listing 37.1 is that for lines with slopes between 0.5 and 2, the average run length is less than two, rendering run-length slicing ineffective. This can be remedied by viewing lines in that range as being composed of diagonal, rather than horizontal or vertical runs. I haven't space to take this idea any further in this book, but it's not very complicated, and it guarantees a minimum run length of 2, which renders run drawing considerably more efficient, and makes techniques such as unrolling the inner run-drawing loops more attractive. Finally, be aware that run-length slice drawing is best for long lines, because it has more and slower setup than a standard Bresenham's line draw, including a divide. Run-length slice is great for 100-pixel lines, but not necessarily for 20-pixel lines, and it's a sure thing that it's not terrific for 3-pixel lines. Both approaches will work, but if line-drawing performance is critical, whether you'll want to use run-length slice or standard Bresenham's depends on the typical lengths of the lines you'll be drawing. For lines of widely varying lengths, you might want to implement both approaches, and choose the best one for each line, depending on the line length—assuming, of course, that your display memory is fast enough and your application demanding enough to make that level of optimization worthwhile. If your code looks broken from a performance perspective, think before you fix it; that particular cat may be dead for a perfectly good reason. I'll say it again: *Profile before you optimize*.