Enhanced ComparingUpdateTracker to crop changed blocks

64x64 changed block can be large for fine changes such as cursor
movement and typing in terminal windows, or an update to a clock.

If the block can be efficiently cropped, this will reduce latency
and bandwidth. Every pixel cropped is a pixel less to analyze, encode,
transmit, and decode.

The previous code already detected the top of the change in order
to determine if the block had changed. However, it did not use
this information to reduce the size of the change rectangle, nor
did it calculate any of the other edges.

The new code introduces detection of the other edges, and uses
the information to build a reduced area change rectangle. This
has the additional effect of reducing the number of discrete pixel
values in the change block which may allow a more efficient
encoding algorithm to be selected.

As this section of code is performance sensitive, the method
of detecting the edges has been optimized to quickly fall back
to pessimistic values as soon as a single comparison fails on
each edge. In the case that full 64x64 block are changing,
there will be three extra comparisons per block.

In cases where the change rectangle can be reduced from 64x64,
the reduced size of the change rectangle represents reduced
effort to encode, transfer, and decode the contained pixels.

In the case of images with high frequency changes, which
specifically includes text, the lossy JPEG encoding can be
highly distorted, especially with JPEG level 6 or less. The
quick flash from a distorted JPEG to a lossless JPEG can
appear as a flickering to some people. This effect was more
obvious when the surrounding area is not expected to change,
but is being distorted anyways due to being part of the 64x64
blocking algorithm.

In the case of a user typing in a terminal window, this change
may commonly reduce the number of pixels updated with every
character typed from 4096 pixels (64x64) to 640 pixels (32x20)
or less.

diff --git a/common/rfb/ComparingUpdateTracker.cxx b/common/rfb/ComparingUpdateTracker.cxx
index d5651200c4237a1030fd5117cde2b09af20636f9..14ed908c22f5a6c012ab407f33efd2155cb0c94b 100644 (file)
--- a/common/rfb/ComparingUpdateTracker.cxx
+++ b/common/rfb/ComparingUpdateTracker.cxx
@@ -120,6 +120,10 @@ void ComparingUpdateTracker::compareRect(const Rect& r, Region* newChanged)
   rdr::U8* oldData = oldFb.getBufferRW(r, &oldStride);
   int oldStrideBytes = oldStride * bytesPerPixel;
 
+  // Used to efficiently crop the left and right of the change rectangle
+  int minCompareWidthInPixels = BLOCK_SIZE / 8;
+  int minCompareWidthInBytes = minCompareWidthInPixels * bytesPerPixel;
+
   for (int blockTop = r.tl.y; blockTop < r.br.y; blockTop += BLOCK_SIZE)
   {
     // Get a strip of the source buffer
@@ -139,19 +143,91 @@ void ComparingUpdateTracker::compareRect(const Rect& r, Region* newChanged)
       int blockRight = __rfbmin(blockLeft+BLOCK_SIZE, r.br.x);
       int blockWidthInBytes = (blockRight-blockLeft) * bytesPerPixel;
 
+      // Scan the block top to bottom, to identify the first row of change
       for (int y = blockTop; y < blockBottom; y++)
       {
         if (memcmp(oldPtr, newPtr, blockWidthInBytes) != 0)
         {
-          // A block has changed - copy the remainder to the oldFb
-          newChanged->assign_union(Region(Rect(blockLeft, blockTop,
-                                               blockRight, blockBottom)));
-          for (int y2 = y; y2 < blockBottom; y2++)
+          // Define the change rectangle using pessimistic values to start
+          int changeHeight = blockBottom - y;
+          int changeLeft = blockLeft;
+          int changeRight = blockRight;
+
+          // For every unchanged row at the bottom of the block, decrement change height
+          {
+            const rdr::U8* newRowPtr = newPtr + ((changeHeight - 1) * newStrideBytes);
+            const rdr::U8* oldRowPtr = oldPtr + ((changeHeight - 1) * oldStrideBytes);
+            while (changeHeight > 1 && memcmp(oldRowPtr, newRowPtr, blockWidthInBytes) == 0)
+            {
+              newRowPtr -= newStrideBytes;
+              oldRowPtr -= oldStrideBytes;
+
+              changeHeight--;
+            }
+          }
+
+          // For every unchanged column at the left of the block, increment change left
+          {
+            const rdr::U8* newColumnPtr = newPtr;
+            const rdr::U8* oldColumnPtr = oldPtr;
+            while (changeLeft + minCompareWidthInPixels < changeRight)
+            {
+              const rdr::U8* newRowPtr = newColumnPtr;
+              const rdr::U8* oldRowPtr = oldColumnPtr;
+              for (int row = 0; row < changeHeight; row++)
+              {
+                if (memcmp(oldRowPtr, newRowPtr, minCompareWidthInBytes) != 0)
+                  goto endOfChangeLeft;
+
+                newRowPtr += newStrideBytes;
+                oldRowPtr += oldStrideBytes;
+              }
+
+              newColumnPtr += minCompareWidthInBytes;
+              oldColumnPtr += minCompareWidthInBytes;
+
+              changeLeft += minCompareWidthInPixels;
+            }
+          }
+        endOfChangeLeft:
+
+          // For every unchanged column at the right of the block, decrement change right
+          {
+            const rdr::U8* newColumnPtr = newPtr + blockWidthInBytes;
+            const rdr::U8* oldColumnPtr = oldPtr + blockWidthInBytes;
+            while (changeLeft + minCompareWidthInPixels < changeRight)
+            {
+              newColumnPtr -= minCompareWidthInBytes;
+              oldColumnPtr -= minCompareWidthInBytes;
+
+              const rdr::U8* newRowPtr = newColumnPtr;
+              const rdr::U8* oldRowPtr = oldColumnPtr;
+              for (int row = 0; row < changeHeight; row++)
+              {
+                if (memcmp(oldRowPtr, newRowPtr, minCompareWidthInBytes) != 0)
+                  goto endOfChangeRight;
+
+                newRowPtr += newStrideBytes;
+                oldRowPtr += oldStrideBytes;
+              }
+
+              changeRight -= minCompareWidthInPixels;
+            }
+          }
+        endOfChangeRight:
+
+          // Block change extends from (changeLeft, y) to (changeRight, y + changeHeight)
+          newChanged->assign_union(Region(Rect(changeLeft, y, changeRight, y + changeHeight)));
+
+          // Copy the change from fb to oldFb to allow future changes to be identified
+          for (int row = 0; row < changeHeight; row++)
           {
             memcpy(oldPtr, newPtr, blockWidthInBytes);
             newPtr += newStrideBytes;
             oldPtr += oldStrideBytes;
           }
+
+          // No further processing is required for this block
           break;
         }