Register 360 2023.0.3 using GPU for Import Now???

[Kruse]

Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this with the latest release of Register 360 2023.0.3.... Seems as though it's utilizing my GPU for something in the background while it's importing RAW RTC 360 scans. I love seeing this to more fully utilize my computer's hardware and run faster, but I was curious to see if anyone else has noticed this in the latest release or if this has been going on for a while and I'm just now noticing it. I don't recall seeing anything mentioned in the release notes, but I could have looked over it. (I also attached the same jpg as a PDF incase the jpg wasn't readable)

[pburrows145]

Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this with the latest release of Register 360 2023.0.3.... Seems as though it's utilizing my GPU for something in the background while it's importing RAW RTC 360 scans. I love seeing this to more fully utilize my computer's hardware and run faster, but I was curious to see if anyone else has noticed this in the latest release or if this has been going on for a while and I'm just now noticing it. I don't recall seeing anything mentioned in the release notes, but I could have looked over it. (I also attached the same jpg as a PDF incase the jpg wasn't readable)

Seems the case, right!? I will run some tests on the new version on my latest laptop (which has some serious graphical GRUNT!)

[smacl]

Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this with the latest release of Register 360 2023.0.3.... Seems as though it's utilizing my GPU for something in the background while it's importing RAW RTC 360 scans. I love seeing this to more fully utilize my computer's hardware and run faster, but I was curious to see if anyone else has noticed this in the latest release or if this has been going on for a while and I'm just now noticing it. I don't recall seeing anything mentioned in the release notes, but I could have looked over it. (I also attached the same jpg as a PDF incase the jpg wasn't readable)

Possibly a dumb question, but is the import noticeably faster as a result? It would be interesting to do an import speed comparison against a previous version that wasn't using GPU. Looking at your task manager screen dump, the import also seems heavily CPU bound across all threads which surprises me as I'd expect import to be more I/O bound.

[VXGrid]

Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this with the latest release of Register 360 2023.0.3.... Seems as though it's utilizing my GPU for something in the background while it's importing RAW RTC 360 scans. I love seeing this to more fully utilize my computer's hardware and run faster, but I was curious to see if anyone else has noticed this in the latest release or if this has been going on for a while and I'm just now noticing it. I don't recall seeing anything mentioned in the release notes, but I could have looked over it. (I also attached the same jpg as a PDF incase the jpg wasn't readable)

Possibly a dumb question, but is the import noticeably faster as a result? It would be interesting to do an import speed comparison against a previous version that wasn't using GPU. Looking at your task manager screen dump, the import also seems heavily CPU bound across all threads which surprises me as I'd expect import to be more I/O bound.

I think it is depending on the format.
I mean if you need to uncompress files and then you do colour mapping to scan points, there are some algorithms involved and not so much only reading the file - finished.
But I have never dealt with raw scan files and the conversion to "computer usable cache" files, so I don't know which steps are possibly involved.

But still this would be an excellent test, I'm curiouse about the result myself.
@Kruse, if you have time for this please do it!

[Kruse]

Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this with the latest release of Register 360 2023.0.3.... Seems as though it's utilizing my GPU for something in the background while it's importing RAW RTC 360 scans. I love seeing this to more fully utilize my computer's hardware and run faster, but I was curious to see if anyone else has noticed this in the latest release or if this has been going on for a while and I'm just now noticing it. I don't recall seeing anything mentioned in the release notes, but I could have looked over it. (I also attached the same jpg as a PDF incase the jpg wasn't readable)

Possibly a dumb question, but is the import noticeably faster as a result? It would be interesting to do an import speed comparison against a previous version that wasn't using GPU. Looking at your task manager screen dump, the import also seems heavily CPU bound across all threads which surprises me as I'd expect import to be more I/O bound.

I haven't done a detailed import performance test in a while, but it does seem to be slightly faster overall, but every dataset will import with different speeds so it might be some placebo effect on my end. I have to process the same dataset only changing the Reg360+ version... When I get some time, I'll pick away at it,

[Kruse]

Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this with the latest release of Register 360 2023.0.3.... Seems as though it's utilizing my GPU for something in the background while it's importing RAW RTC 360 scans. I love seeing this to more fully utilize my computer's hardware and run faster, but I was curious to see if anyone else has noticed this in the latest release or if this has been going on for a while and I'm just now noticing it. I don't recall seeing anything mentioned in the release notes, but I could have looked over it. (I also attached the same jpg as a PDF incase the jpg wasn't readable)

Possibly a dumb question, but is the import noticeably faster as a result? It would be interesting to do an import speed comparison against a previous version that wasn't using GPU. Looking at your task manager screen dump, the import also seems heavily CPU bound across all threads which surprises me as I'd expect import to be more I/O bound.

I think it is depending on the format.
I mean if you need to uncompress files and then you do colour mapping to scan points, there are some algorithms involved and not so much only reading the file - finished.
But I have never dealt with raw scan files and the conversion to "computer usable cache" files, so I don't know which steps are possibly involved.

But still this would be an excellent test, I'm curiouse about the result myself.
@Kruse, if you have time for this please do it!

As I get some time, I'll find a couple datasets to test on, but at the moment I only have the 2023.0.2 version saved to my computer, so I might need some assistance in getting the 2023.0.1 version as well to do a proper test comparing the different releases.

[smacl]

But I have never dealt with raw scan files and the conversion to "computer usable cache" files, so I don't know which steps are possibly involved.

For static scanning, to get from polar spherical to setup local Cartesian coordinates requires some simple trig but nothing that would effect import speed. I guess noise reduction could be more compute intensive if it is applied on import. Colorization is certainly compute intensive if that is being done on import. My guess is that it is more likely that some pre-computation for either classification or registration is happening.

[badam]

I think it is just using the gpu for image processing. they use opencv for processing still images to hdr cubemaps. Maybe they switched some of the function to hw accelerated one. So i'd search time difference between image processing at first. there are logs in the log file about the times it took.

[Kruse]

Here are some results from comparing Register 360+ Versions 2023.0.0, 2023.0.2, and 2023.0.3 to see how the latest updates affect various hardware usage throughout the import stage (I didn't have the 2023.0.1 install file saved anywhere). Attached pdf shows the import speeds and some other results of power used, data transfer rates, etc.

Results Spreadsheet - 2023.09.23.pdf

My laptop used to test was a Dell Precision 7770 (2022 version) and the specs are:

CPU - 12950HX - 157W Max turbo power
GPU - Nvidia RTX A5500 - 165W Max power (this is not the Ada generation GPU)
RAM - 128GB CAMM Module - 3600 MHz
C Drive - 4TB Kioxia Gen 4 NVMe
D Drive - 4TB Seagate FireCuda Gen 4 NVMe
E and F Drives were also 4TB Gen 4 NVMe's, but were not used/needed for this test
240 Watt power supply

All project databases were stored on the default Register 360+ location on the C Drive and temp folder and RAW RTC 360 scans hosted on the D Drive. I tested two different project types we typically encounter in Construction with project 1 being a simpler dataset due to being outside and capturing more planar surfaces and simpler objects. The second dataset was an indoor enviornment of a construction project being built out where there are lots of unique surfaces and areas where there will be lots of noise and edge artifacting for Register 360 to process. The indoor scan images from the RTC 360 also take significantly longer to stitch together due to the parallaxing effect of the offset cameras. With the scanner being setup close to the various MEPF systems, parallaxing was unavoidable, and has always increased the time it takes to stitch the photos together in Reg 360+. See attached snapshots from each project as examples.

Project Database sizes.jpg

Indoor_Complex dataset image example 1.jpg

Indoor_Complex dataset image example 2.jpg

Outdoor_Simple dataset image example 1.jpg

Outdoor_Simple dataset image example 2.jpg

Through the testing and comparing the results between the multiple versions of Reg360+, a couple things were consistent.
1. I was maxing out my ~240W power supply when both the CPU and GPU were heavily used (among other background apps running).
2. My laptop's cooling was maxed out and would cause some slow downs due to thermal throttling of the CPU. CPU was routinely hitting 100C on all import versions/tests even though my Dell laptop had the cooling fans pinned at 100% the whole time.
3. RAM was maxed out at 128GB at several points throughout the import with Reg360+ using 105 to 115 GB alone (other system apps running would use a little to get to the 128GB max).

The 2023.0.3 version was slightly faster and definitely used more power for both the CPU and GPU and hit the GPU harder at times. The larger datasets with more medium and high density scans seemed to benefit more time savings overall with the greater use from the GPU. As others look at the results in the PDF, you might have some more insight, but let me know if you had any questions or needed some other info. I've got plenty of snapshots saved with other metrics from HWInfo during all the other tests.

I ran the 2023.0.3 imports twice to make sure the import speeds were consistent and they were within 1.5 minutes of each other, so I only ran the other import tests once for the sake of time. I'm sure running each one a few times would provide a better comparison, but I only have so much time, haha. For all import tests, I elevated my laptop on a stand to provide better airflow beneath and around the laptop to maximize cooling and the laptop was in the same location for all tests. I'm sure there will still be a bit of run to run variance between imports and depending on the dataset used, but these are some typical use cases for us and our RTC 360s with Register 360+.

Results Spreadsheet - 2023.09.23.pdf

[badam]

Here are some results from comparing Register 360+ Versions 2023.0.0, 2023.0.2, and 2023.0.3 to see how the latest updates affect various hardware usage throughout the import stage (I didn't have the 2023.0.1 install file saved anywhere). Attached pdf shows the import speeds and some other results of power used, data transfer rates, etc. Results Spreadsheet - 2023.09.23.pdf

My laptop used to test was a Dell Precision 7770 (2022 version) and the specs are:

CPU - 12950HX - 157W Max turbo power
GPU - Nvidia RTX A5500 - 165W Max power (this is not the Ada generation GPU)
RAM - 128GB CAMM Module - 3600 MHz
C Drive - 4TB Kioxia Gen 4 NVMe
D Drive - 4TB Seagate FireCuda Gen 4 NVMe
E and F Drives were also 4TB Gen 4 NVMe's, but were not used/needed for this test
240 Watt power supply

All project databases were stored on the default Register 360+ location on the C Drive and temp folder and RAW RTC 360 scans hosted on the D Drive. I tested two different project types we typically encounter in Construction with project 1 being a simpler dataset due to being outside and capturing more planar surfaces and simpler objects. The second dataset was an indoor enviornment of a construction project being built out where there are lots of unique surfaces and areas where there will be lots of noise and edge artifacting for Register 360 to process. The indoor scan images from the RTC 360 also take significantly longer to stitch together due to the parallaxing effect of the offset cameras. With the scanner being setup close to the various MEPF systems, parallaxing was unavoidable, and has always increased the time it takes to stitch the photos together in Reg 360+. See attached snapshots from each project as examples. Project Database sizes.jpg
Indoor_Complex dataset image example 1.jpg
Indoor_Complex dataset image example 2.jpg
Outdoor_Simple dataset image example 1.jpg
Outdoor_Simple dataset image example 2.jpg

Through the testing and comparing the results between the multiple versions of Reg360+, a couple things were consistent.
1. I was maxing out my ~240W power supply when both the CPU and GPU were heavily used (among other background apps running).
2. My laptop's cooling was maxed out and would cause some slow downs due to thermal throttling of the CPU. CPU was routinely hitting 100C on all import versions/tests even though my Dell laptop had the cooling fans pinned at 100% the whole time.
3. RAM was maxed out at 128GB at several points throughout the import with Reg360+ using 105 to 115 GB alone (other system apps running would use a little to get to the 128GB max).

The 2023.0.3 version was slightly faster and definitely used more power for both the CPU and GPU and hit the GPU harder at times. The larger datasets with more medium and high density scans seemed to benefit more time savings overall with the greater use from the GPU. As others look at the results in the PDF, you might have some more insight, but let me know if you had any questions or needed some other info. I've got plenty of snapshots saved with other metrics from HWInfo during all the other tests.

I ran the 2023.0.3 imports twice to make sure the import speeds were consistent and they were within 1.5 minutes of each other, so I only ran the other import tests once for the sake of time. I'm sure running each one a few times would provide a better comparison, but I only have so much time, haha. For all import tests, I elevated my laptop on a stand to provide better airflow beneath and around the laptop to maximize cooling and the laptop was in the same location for all tests. I'm sure there will still be a bit of run to run variance between imports and depending on the dataset used, but these are some typical use cases for us and our RTC 360s with Register 360+.
Results Spreadsheet - 2023.09.23.pdf

Can you attach the log files for the import?
%programdata%/Leica geosystems/register360/...
Or something like that. But those times are not exceptional, i usually get around the same with single threaded with a 5600G without dedicated gpu. Maybe can we share a dataset to compare the two setups (everything on nas, and low budget vs highest budget local storage)