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I need to somehow render several large 3D graphs where each vertex has a position in 3D as well as edges between some of these vertices. I have an XML file with the graph structure (a list of vertices with corresponding id and position as well as a list of edges given as two vertex ids each) and wrote a script to import vertices as spheres and edges as cylinders. This is working fine for up to 100k vertices & edges but importing millions takes way too long (several days).

I am already using low-level operations, creating one sphere (with minimal segment and ring count) and copying that sphere for each vertex in the list. Only afterwards I update the scene:

# Example data:
node_dic = {0: (0,0,0), 1: (0,1,1), 2: (0,1,0), 3: (1,0,0), 4: (1,1,1)}

# Generate base sphere:
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_uv_sphere_add(location=(0,0,0), segments=3, ring_count=3)
ob = bpy.context.object
ob.scale = [0.003, 0.003, 0.003]

# Copy object for each item in the dictionary:
for node_id, node_pos in node_dic.items():
    copy = ob.copy()
    copy.data = ob.data.copy()
    loc = np.array(node_pos)
    copy.name = 'node-' + str(node_id)
    generated_nodes[node_id] = copy

# Create vertex group:
group_name = "vertices"    
groups = bpy.data.groups
vertex_group = groups.get(group_name, groups.new(group_name)) 

# Link vertices to group
for ob in list(generated_nodes.values()):
   if ob.name not in vertex_group.objects:
        vertex_group.objects.link(ob)


# Update scene with group instance:
scene = bpy.context.scene
group = bpy.data.groups[group_name]
instance = bpy.data.objects.new(group_name, None)
instance.dupli_type = 'GROUP'
instance.dupli_group = group
scene.objects.link(instance)
scene.update()

I am doing the same for the cylinders representing the edges of the graph with the additional complication that they have to be rotated properly. As mentioned before this doesn't scale.

Thus my question, is there a better way to achieve something like this? A completely different approach maybe or some optimization I am not aware of?

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  • $\begingroup$ I guess you could lump many pieces into one object to improve performance. Another idea: create your data as one subdivided plane, and then use modifiers to display it with your spheres & cylinders. $\endgroup$
    – HENDRIX
    Feb 14, 2018 at 17:24
  • $\begingroup$ From what I understand, dupliverts and particles are more efficient than instances for really large numbers of repeats. Might want to give these a try. $\endgroup$
    – TLousky
    Feb 14, 2018 at 17:29
  • $\begingroup$ I thought about dupliverts too and I can see that working for the vertices but as far as I understand getting the cylinders in the right orientation is not straight forward with dupliverts is it? @HENDRIX The lumping might work, but right now it's so slow that I suspect it will not help much. I don't really understand your second suggestion, could you elaborate? $\endgroup$
    – Prook
    Feb 14, 2018 at 17:38
  • $\begingroup$ It's basically the dupliverts idea. Just write your data into one mesh grid, and then visualize it with blender tools. I think there was a modifier for this as well, not sure... $\endgroup$
    – HENDRIX
    Feb 14, 2018 at 17:54
  • $\begingroup$ @HENDRIX is there a benefit to using a plane+displacement, rather than adding all of the nodes as vertices in one mesh, already at their 'final' locations? $\endgroup$
    – ajwood
    Feb 19, 2018 at 13:29

1 Answer 1

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Okay, thanks everybody! What I ended up doing:

  1. From the vertex & edge lists create a mesh via python api:

    # Create mesh & object
    mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new("mesh")
    obj = bpy.data.objects.new("graph", mesh)
    
    scene = bpy.context.scene
    scene.objects.link(obj)
    scene.objects.active = obj
    obj.select = True
    
    mesh = bpy.context.object.data
    bm = bmesh.new()
    
    # Example data - replace with parser
    node_dic = {0: (1,0,0), 1: (0,1,0), 2: (0,0,1), 3: (1, 1, 0)}
    edge_list =[(0,1), (1,2), (2,3), (3,0)]
    index_map = {}
    
    # Add vertices to object:
    for node_id, node_pos in node_dic.items():
        pos = np.array(node_pos)
        v = bm.verts.new(pos)
        index_map[node_id] = v 
    
    # Add edges to object:
    for edge in edge_list:
        bm.edges.new((index_map[edge[0]], index_map[edge[1]])) 
    
    bm.to_mesh(mesh)
    bm.free()
    
  2. This allows for very fast import of rather large graphs (several million vertices and edges). Now for visualizing the vertices as spheres or anything else use dupliverts (https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/editors/3dview/object/properties/duplication/dupliverts.html) on that object.

  3. Visualize the edges between nodes by adding a material to the object.

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  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Could you add a screenshot of what the result looks like? $\endgroup$
    – ajwood
    Feb 19, 2018 at 13:31
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ You could possibly speed it up with mesh.from_pydata(verts, edges, faces), instead of repeatedly adding a vertex via bmesh API. $\endgroup$
    – HENDRIX
    Feb 19, 2018 at 14:33

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