Mira Scripting Benchmarks

Mira scripts are very fast, especially working with "big data" that involve large arrays and images. To show what "fast" means in the context of a scripted procedure, the table below lists some benchmarks which include a mix of high- and low-level scripting operations. These results suggest what you can expect from your numerically intensive scripts. Many benchmarks list the full script source code used.

In the benchmarks, the terms "image" and "array" may used interchangeably, since an image is a numeric data array with metadata (also known as a "header") and the array operation works on the array data of an image. Also, the benchmarks often refer to a "table", like t = {} which is the syntax for creating an empty "table" named t. In the lua language, a "table" is a collection of values which may be treated like a data structure or indexed as an array using integral indices, like t[3] or a[k].

Notice the speed difference between procedures that use high level operations such as  I:Set(t) rather than script-level procedures involving a loop (e.g., compare benchmarks 2 and 5). When working with large arrays, the advantage of using a library call rather than a script loop should be implemented when possible. This is why the Mira script language includes an extensive collection of optimized array methods.

NOTE: Some capabilities are available in the  Mira MX x64 scripting language but not Mira Pro x64.

  Benchmark   Speed
1 Loop overhead (nothing between "do" and "end"):
for k=1,1000000 do
end
  115 million loops / sec
2Create a 64-bit real image from an array of 1 million elements. Create a linear series of values from 1 to 100000, then assigm to an image
t = TSeries(1000000)
I:Set(t)
 
where t is an array of 1 million values and I is a CImage class object.
  12.7 million elements / sec
3 Create a 64-bit real image from an array of 250,000 elements using I:Set(t) where t is an array of 250,000 elements.   13.8 million elements / sec
4 Create a 64-bit real image from an array of 10,000 elements using I:Set(t) where t is an array of 10,000 elements.   13.1 million elements / sec
5Set 1 million elements in an array using a scripted loop, First create an array, then run the assignment loop:
t={}
for k=1,1000000 do t[k]=k end

This script illustrates loop processing overhead.
  15.1 million elements / sec
6Create and set 1 million elements in a local table using
local t={};
for k=1,10000000 do t[k]=k end
  10.4 million elements / sec
7Perform 10 million multiply's using local values:
local n=0; local m=0;
for i=1,10000000 do k=n*m end
  32 million multiplications / sec
8 Perform 10 million divides using local values:
local n=0; local m=0;
for i=1,10000000 do k=n/m end
  31 million divisions / sec
9Perform 10 million adds using local values:
local m=0; local n=0;
for i=1,10000000 do k=n+m end
  32 million adds / sec
10Perform 10 million additions using global values:
n=0; m=0;
for i=1,10000000 do k=n+1000 end
  11.1 million adds / sec
11 Perform 10 million additions using global values:
k=0;
for i=1,10000000 do k=k+1 end
  12.4 million adds / sec
12 Perform 10 million divides and save in a local array:
local t={}; local m=3;
for i=1,10000000 do t[k]=k/m end
  6.85 million / sec
13Least squares solution of 100 points with 4 parameters and 3 variables using a "hyperplane" basis function declared in the script   24 fits / sec
14Least squares solution of 100 points with 4 parameters and 3 variables using internal "hyperplane" basis function   1,800 fits / sec
15Least squares solution of 10 points with 4 parameters and 3 variables using internal "hyperplane" basis function   18,000 fits / sec
16Least squares solution of 1000 points using a 3x2 (6 term) 2-D polynomial.   1,250 fits / sec
17Least squares solution using CLsqFit class to fit 10 points with a 3x2 (6 parameter) 2-D polynomial.   24,400 fits / sec
18Least squares solution using a 6 term polynomial to fit 1000 points. This example uses the built-in function TFit, although greater versatility is available by using the CLsqFit class directly. The data to be fit are in an array t. This function returns 4 results: the array of coefficients, array of coefficient errors, the fit standard deviation, and the sample mean:
t = {}
c, e, s, m = TFit(t,6)
  900 fits /sec
19Create 1 million uniformly distributed random numbers.
t = TRand(1000000)
  4.1 million numbers / sec
20Create 1 million Gaussian distributed random numbers.
t = TGaussDev(1000000)
  862,000 numbers / sec
21 Histogram of 1 million real numbers using 100 bins. Using non default parameters requires a class method instead of THist:
H = NewHist()
H:SetBins(100)
H:Calc()
  6 million numbers / sec
22 Histogram of 1 million real numbers, pre-sorted. This uses the global THist function, which is the function that is benchmarked:
t = TRand(1000000)
TSort(t)
THist(t)
  11 million numbers / sec
23Add two 1000x1000 64-bit real images   236 images / sec
24Add two 1000x1000 32-bit real images   500 images / sec
25Add two 1000x1000 16-bit integer images   704 images / sec
26Add two 1000x1000 24-bit RGB images   242 images / sec
27Add two 1200x960 48-bit URGB images (RGB with 16 bits per channel)   225 images / sec
28Multiply 1000x1000 32-bit real images   300 images / sec
29Multiply 1000x1000 32-bit real image by a number   210 images / sec
30Divide two 1000x1000 32-bit real images   106 images sec
31 Start with a 1000x1000 pixel 16-bit integer image. Convert it to "float" data type, add 1000.0 to each pixel, divide the two images, and then raise the resulting pixel values to a power. In this script, you may also think of the image simply as a data array:
I[1]:SetDatatype("float")
I[2] = I[1] + 1000
I[3] = I[1] / I[2]
I[4] = I[1] ^ I[3]


This script creates 2 intermediate images, preserving the original image, and creates a new final image. The last step raises I[1] to the power of image I[3], pixel by pixel (extremely CPU-intensive). The benchmark includes all 4 steps.
  10.3 million pixels / sec
32Same as above plus display all 4 final images in a new image window. This includes computation of an image histogram, transfer function, and palette mapping for each image.   2.7 images / sec
33 Load 1 Megapixel image of 16 bit pixels from hard drive, compute complete image histogram and auto-scale transfer function using gamma=0.6, then display in a new window.   8 images / sec

Testing Procedure and the Test Machine

test machine used was chosen to be representative of a modest PC available to Mira users. We did not want to present best-case results that many users would not be able to achieve. The test machine uses a 3.0 GHz Pentium Core-2 Duo E-6850 CPU with 4 GB of DDR-2 RAM. Most Mira users will have a machine more capable than this and can expect faster timings. To increase the significance of the benchmarks, the entire procedure, including loops, was repeated in a loop of 10 to 10000 cycles and the time result was divided accordingly.

 


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