iPhone : creating Texture2D much slower when image loaded from file in app's Documents, why?

Question

Slower than what? slower than creating the same textures from an image loaded from the app bundle. How much slower ? 80 times slower on iPhone, similar ratio (but faster overall) on Mac.

My example below shows loading an image with imageNamed: ; creating textures from the first image ; saving image to a file in the app's Documents directory ; loading an image from that file ; creating textures from the second image.

Images are 640x640 png, 100 textures 64x64 are created in each case. Creation times are 0.51 s vs. 41.3 s.

Can anyone explain this huge difference, and point me to ways and means of speeding up the second case, to make it as fast as the first, if possible ?

Rudif

#import "Texture2D.h"

#define START_TIMER NSTimeInterval start = [NSDate timeIntervalSinceReferenceDate];
#define END_TIMER NSTimeInterval stop = [NSDate timeIntervalSinceReferenceDate]; NSLog(@"Time = %f", stop-start); 


@interface UIImage (CS_Extensions)
-(UIImage *) imageAtRect:(CGRect)rect;
+(NSString *) documentsDirectory;
+(void) saveImage:(UIImage *)image toDocumentsFile:(NSString *)filename;
+(UIImage *) imageFromDocumentsFile:(NSString *)filename;
+(BOOL) documentsFileExists:(NSString *)filename;
+(void) createTexturesFromImage:(UIImage *)image640x640 texture:(Texture2D **)texture;

@end;

@implementation UIImage (MiscExt)

-(UIImage *)imageAtRect:(CGRect)rect {
    CGImageRef imageRef = CGImageCreateWithImageInRect([self CGImage], rect);
    UIImage* subImage = [UIImage imageWithCGImage: imageRef];
    CGImageRelease(imageRef);
    return subImage;
}

+(NSString *) documentsDirectory {
    NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES);
    NSString *documentsDirectory = [paths objectAtIndex:0];
    return documentsDirectory;
}

+(UIImage *) imageFromDocumentsFile:(NSString *)filename {
    //  NSString *documentsDirectory = [NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"Documents"];
    NSString *documentsDirectory = [self documentsDirectory];
    NSString *path = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@/%@", documentsDirectory, filename];
    NSLog(@"%s : path %@", __FUNCTION__, path);
    NSData *data = [[NSData alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:path];
    UIImage *image = [[UIImage alloc] initWithData:data];
    return image;
}

+(void) saveImage:(UIImage *)image toDocumentsFile:(NSString *)filename {
    if (image != nil) {     // save to local file
        //      NSString *documentsDirectory = [NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"Documents"];
        NSString *documentsDirectory = [self documentsDirectory];
        NSString *path = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@/%@", documentsDirectory, filename];
        NSLog(@"%s : path %@", __FUNCTION__, path);
        //You can write an NSData to the fs w/ a method on NSData.
        //If you have a UIImage, you can do UIImageJPEGRepresentation() or UIImagePNGRepresentation to get data.
        NSData *data = UIImagePNGRepresentation(image);
        [data writeToFile:path atomically:YES];
        // Check if file exists
        NSFileManager *fileManager = [NSFileManager defaultManager];
        BOOL ok = [fileManager fileExistsAtPath:path];
        if (ok) {
            NSLog(@"%s : written file %@", __FUNCTION__, path);
        }
        else {
            NSLog(@"%s : failed to write file %@", __FUNCTION__, path);
        }
    }
}

+(BOOL) documentsFileExists:(NSString *)filename {
    NSString *documentsDirectory = [self documentsDirectory];
    NSString *path = [documentsDirectory stringByAppendingPathComponent:filename];
    NSLog(@"%s : path %@", __FUNCTION__, path);
    BOOL exists = [[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:path];
    return exists;
}

+(void) createTexturesFromImage:(UIImage *)image640x640 texture:(Texture2D **)texture {
    NSLog(@"%s -> ", __FUNCTION__);
    START_TIMER;
    for (int x = 0; x < 9; ++x) {
        for (int y = 0; y < 9; ++y) {
            UIImage *ulCorner = [image640x640 imageAtRect:CGRectMake(x*64,y*64,64,64)];
            texture[y*10+x] = [[Texture2D alloc] initWithImage:ulCorner];
        }
    }
    END_TIMER;
    NSLog(@"%s <- ", __FUNCTION__);
}

@end


-(void) test {

    Texture2D *texture1[100];
    Texture2D *texture2[100];

    // compare texture creation from a bundled file vs Documents file
    {
        UIImage *imageBundled = [UIImage imageNamed:@"bivio-640x640.png"];
        [UIImage createTexturesFromImage:imageBundled texture:texture1];

        [UIImage saveImage:imageBundled toDocumentsFile:@"docfile.png"];
        BOOL ok = [UIImage documentsFileExists:@"docfile.png"];

        UIImage *imageFromFile = [UIImage imageFromDocumentsFile:@"docfile.png"];
        [UIImage createTexturesFromImage:imageFromFile texture:texture2];
    }
}

Answer 1

When you built your project, XCode optimises PNGs that you put in resources.

This article explains it in details: http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.com/2008/10/iphone-optimized-pngs.html