Sikuli

java multithreading is not parallel

Asked by Jaroslav Novotny on 2020-10-18

I have this runnable class:

public class PatternFinder implements Runnable {
    private final Pattern pattern;
    private final Region region;

    public PatternFinder(Pattern pattern, Region region){
        this.pattern = pattern;
        this.region = region;
    }
    @Override
    public void run(){
        region.has(pattern,0);
    }

Then I make bunch of threads, I give each different PatternFinder that each has different region and different pattern, I start() them all and then join() them to the main thread. But I get the same performance like if I wouldn't use any threading at all and run all the some_region.has(some_pattern, 0); sequentially in the main thread.

I am using JDK 8u251, win10, sikulixapi-2.0.4

Thanks

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Solved
For:
Sikuli Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Solved by:
Jaroslav Novotny
Solved:
2020-10-22
Last query:
2020-10-22
Last reply:
2020-10-18
RaiMan (raimund-hocke) said : #1

This is my test program (latest Java 8 on macOS 10.15 (iMac: 3 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i5))

package com.sikulix.testAPI;

import org.sikuli.script.*;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.List;

public class Run {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    ImagePath.add("com.sikulix.testAPI.Run/images");
    Screen screen = new Screen();

    int regw = 300;
    int regh = 300;
    Region reg = new Region(0, 0, regw, regh);
    //to run the image search global init (adds to the first search)
    Image img = Image.create("img");
    reg.has(img);

    System.out.println(String.format("***** region: %dx%d", regw, regh));
    doit(regw, regh, 1, img);
    doit(regw, regh, 10, img);
    doit(regw, regh, 100, img);

    regw = screen.w;
    regh = screen.h;
    System.out.println(String.format("***** region: %dx%d", regw, regh));
    doit(regw, regh, 1, img);
    doit(regw, regh, 10, img);
    doit(regw, regh, 100, img);
  }

  private static void doit(int regw, int regh, int nmax, Image img) {
    long start = new Date().getTime();
    for (int n = 0; n < nmax; n++) {
      Region reg = new Region(0, 0, regw, regh);
      reg.has("img");
    }
    long duration = new Date().getTime() - start;
    System.out.println("nmax: " + nmax);
    System.out.println("duration: " + duration);

    List<Thread> threads = new ArrayList<>();
    for (int n = 0; n < nmax; n++) {
      threads.add(new Thread(() -> {
        Region regt = new Region(0, 0, regw, regh);
        regt.has(img);
      }));
    }
    start = new Date().getTime();
    for (Thread thx : threads) {
      thx.start();
    }
    for (Thread thx : threads) {
      try {
        thx.join();
      } catch (InterruptedException e) {
      }
    }
    duration = new Date().getTime() - start;
    System.out.println("duration threads: " + duration);
  }
}

This is the output:
***** region: 300x300
nmax: 1
duration: 16
duration threads: 17
nmax: 10
duration: 160
duration threads: 104
nmax: 100
duration: 1539
duration threads: 908
***** region: 2048x1152
nmax: 1
duration: 324
duration threads: 333
nmax: 10
duration: 3103
duration threads: 1675
nmax: 100
duration: 29967
duration threads: 14638

Which meets my experiences that I made with the implementation of Region.findAny() (internally uses a similar construct with threads): Getting down to 50% elapsed time is the best you can get.

I guess this is due to some internal resource-locking, probably in the AWT-Robot when capturing the screen.

I will keep an eye on this on the way to the final 2.0.5.

Jaroslav Novotny (jaroslav-novotny) said : #2

I distilled my code to the smallest working example: https://notepad.pw/code/g105vjx1b
And got output that I'd expect:

Test 1 took: 432 ms
Test 2 took: 118 ms
Test 3 took: 168 ms

I'll keep investigating but looks like problem is somewhere else, most likely between keyboard and chair, so I'll close this as solved.