[BUG]: Color Translation is Costly
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- Dominant language
- JavaScript
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- Merged PRs (30d)
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Description
Description
When rendering a scatter trace, we run rgb(color_string) and parse(color_string) four times for every mark. For the vast majority of scatter charts, this is wasteful re-computation.
Surprisingly, this string parsing appears to be a serious bottleneck. Removing it seems to provide a 2x speed improvement for charts with large numbers of marks.
Screenshots/Video
Steps to reproduce
Run npm start.
In the the console run:
const gd = document.getElementById('graph');
const n = 1e5, x = new Float64Array(n), y = new Float64Array(n);
for (let i = 0; i < n; i++) { x[i] = i; y[i] = Math.sin(i / 500); }
const runs = [];
for (let k = 0; k < 5; k++) {
await Plotly.purge(gd);
const t = performance.now();
await Plotly.newPlot(gd, [{type: 'scatter', mode: 'markers', x, y}],
{width: 900, height: 600}, {displayModeBar: false});
runs.push(+(performance.now() - t).toFixed(1));
}
runs.sort((a, b) => a - b);
console.log('median', runs[2], runs);
See the numbers. Then test with the memoization PR I've put up and notice the lower numbers.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start with the scatter trace rendering path that calls rgb(color_string) and parse(color_string); compare it with the memoization PR mentioned in the report. Reproduce the 100,000-mark benchmark from the issue, then confirm the optimized run retains rendering behavior and improves median timing.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- javascript
- Domain
- data-visualization, performance
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100