Hi!

As a result of my previous posts (Links and Performance), I am a bit mixed up.

I need to be able to load my diagram quickly (the bottle-neck is routeLinks) and to have clear links. To improve the routing speed, you suggested me to use a big RoutingOptions.GridSize (40 is good enough). It seemed to work for a while, but now I realized that the visual result is not good enough. To have clear links (I need to be able to follow the links' paths easily), I need to have a small grid size (5). However, this slows down the loading speed. I just need to make sure that my links end & start orientation are always horizontal (under all circumstances without any exception). I made a little user interface to help me play with the different parameters (a bit like the one in the Routing sample, but with more options).

In order or importance, I would need:

• Horizontal start & end links.
• Links that do not follow the same path (if two links are on the exact same line we end up loosing track of what goes where).
• Links that do not cross nodes.

I do not understand exactly how the priorities work regarding routing. Is there a way I can respect the previous 3 rules in that order and remove every other rules to have good performance? I already found that LinkStyle.Cascading seem to work better, but I do not know how to enforce/use RoutingOptions.StartOrientation & RoutingOptions.EndOrientation...

Thanks
Marie

Hi Stoyan,

I will do that . However, it is not the worst case. When I have only 1 outgoing link on an anchorpoint (which is almost always the case), the line often starts vertically, following the node's boundaries. It results in totally mixed up links. If I reduce the grid size significantly, the speed is bad but the display is good. I will send you screenshots by email to show you.

Thanks a lot,
Marie

p.s. My RoutingOptions:

• Anchoring = Keep
• Crossing cost = 4
• End & start orientation = Horizontal
• Grid size = 40 (for good results: 5)
• Length cost = 2
• Node vicinity cost = 2
• Node vicinity size = 48
• Turn cost = 4
• Don't optimize long routes = true
• Smart polyline ends = true

My Diagram options (related to links):

• Link style = Cascading
• Link cascade orientation = Auto
• Links crossing = Straight
• Rounded links radius = 10
• Crossing radius = 4
• Links snap to border = false
• Dynamic links = false
• Rounded links = true

Hi Stoyan,

I will try that and tell you later how it works . However, I will try to use link.ControlPoints instead to know if the link's start & end are vertical or horizontal. It seems easier and more reliable to use that instead of the nodes' distance. Is there already a method made to tell me that?

Thanks,
Marie

Perfect

Hi,

We could add a property that lets you define the minimum length of the first and last segments of links, and it would always takes precedence over the RoutingOptions costs that now make the links change their direction too soon.

Stoyan

For your information, this issue is continued at the end of the following post http://mindfusion.eu/Forum/YaBB.pl?board=fcnet_disc;action=display;num=123376652... (look for posts starting on 2009 March 18^th).


(I'm writing this just in case someone else has the same problem )...