pcbnew takes over 15min to load complex designs with pours

[Victor W]

Hi,

We're using the rc3, which has been compiled from source, using archlinux.

We are working on a complex design and have recently added a number of power planes and ground pours. Since adding these pours, the time required for PCBnew to load the design and become interactive has has gone up drastically.

Prior to adding these pours it took approximately 3min for PCBnew to load the design and become responsive. The addition of these pours has resulted in PCBnew taking over 20min to load the design and become responsive.

We have also noticed a responsiveness difference when viewing the design with filled zones showing, or with "Do not show filled areas in zones". Generally speaking, the program is more responsive when the filled area is hidden.

We've tried running the program with the legacy, accelerated, and fallback modes, but it's not clear that there is a substantial difference in the time until it becomes responsive.

As it stands, the loading time make it incredibly difficult for meaningful work to be completed by different people (because there's a fixed penalty whenever we have to hand off the work).

===

Application: kicad
Version: (5.0.0-rc3-dev), release build
Libraries:
    wxWidgets 3.0.4
    libcurl/7.60.0 OpenSSL/1.1.0h zlib/1.2.11 libidn2/2.0.5 libpsl/0.20.2 (+libidn2/2.0.4) nghttp2/1.31.1
Platform: Linux 4.17.2-1-ARCH x86_64, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK
Build Info:
    wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8) GTK+ 2.24
    Boost: 1.67.0
    OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
    Curl: 7.60.0
    Compiler: GCC 8.1.1 with C++ ABI 1012

Build settings:
    USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=OFF
    USE_WX_OVERLAY=OFF
    KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=OFF
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
    BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
    KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
    KICAD_USE_OCC=OFF
    KICAD_SPICE=ON

[Victor W (vicw)]

Some additional observations;

- Switching from 'Show filled areas' to 'Do not show filled areas' is very fast.

- Switching from 'Do not show filled areas' to 'Show filled areas' is very (>5-10min) slow.

[Maciej Suminski (orsonmmz)]

Hi Victor,

Is there any chance to get the board file? You can remove everything but the zones, it should be sufficient for us. Do you know if it worked faster in 4.0.x?

[Victor W (vicw)]

@Maciej

I'm not sure how to privately share my email address - though either Tomasz and Seth could forward your email to me :-)

Unfortunately, we are committed to using the 5.x branch for this design.

vvv

[Maciej Suminski (orsonmmz)]

Hi Victor,

It is ok, I work with Tomasz in the same building and I see he has already started looking at the problem.

[Seth Hillbrand (sethh)]

@Victor- Could you update with whether this issue remains open for you in the current 5.1 master?

[KiCad Janitor (kicad-janitor)]

Fixed in revision c0f067bf909e27fc886d0bb76c633999730c9e51
https://git.launchpad.net/kicad/patch/?id=c0f067bf909e27fc886d0bb76c633999730c9e51

[Seth Hillbrand (sethh)]

Latest build takes ~22s for me, so I'm going to close this one for now. Tom, feel free to re-open if you're working on more here.

[Victor W (vicw)]

I can confirm the efficacy of this fix: It opens our design in <20s. This is a /massive/ improvement. This is an incredible improvement - thank you very, very, much.

In addition, the delay between showing filled zones and outlines is massively reduced.

This is a really great commit - thank you :-)