Thursday, August 18, 2011

Renderscript: A First Look

What is Renderscript?
Renderscript is a C99 based language used for 3D rendering and compute API's at the native level on an Android device.  It's a new API provided in the Honeycomb SDK level 11.


When should I use Renderscript?
When you need a high performance graphics rendering solution in your application and/or a high performance compute language for doing resource intensive operations.  Renderscript doesn't require you to write any JNI code to interface with your renderscript code.  The interface between your renderscript and your SDK code is generated for you.  The trade offs are,  you have a reduced feature set compared to using OpenGL with the NDK and you can't allocate memory in your renderscript, it must be allocated from your SDK code.


How is it different than OpenGL?
OpenGL can be used in two different ways in Android.
  • OpenGL API's can be used to produce 3d graphics using the Android SDK.  This is a good choice when performance isn't critical and you don't need the added complexity of using the NDK.
  • OpenGL with the NDK offers you the most flexability and features of OpenGL and is a good choice for graphics intense applications.  However, you have the added complexity of the NDK and you are required to write your own JNI to use your NDK code.
Renderscript components
An app that uses renderscript is composed of three required components.


Renderscript component
This is your actual Renderscript code contained in a .rs file. Renderscript code is C99 based but only has a small set of functionality so as to ensure portability across different CPUs.  You can also create renderscript header files (.rsh) where you can define your structures and function stubs.  You can have multiple .rs and .rsh files.  You can find the provided renderscript header files in the <sdk_root>/platforms/android-11/renderscript directory of the Android SDK.


Reflected component
This component is set of classes generated for you by the Android build tools and are used to interface with your renderscript component.  This includes hooks to the functions and variables in your renderscript code.  Also provided are methods for allocating memory to the pointers defined in your renderscript.
For each .rs file you've created, a class will be generated with the name ScriptC_renderscript_filename. This is the java representation of your .rs that you can call from your SDK code. Code that will be reflected in this generated class is as follows:
  • Non-static functions
  • Non-static global variables are accessed with generated set_ and get_ methods, if a variable is marked as const in your renderscript, then only a get_ method is generated.  It should be noted that the last value set to a variable through the reflected set_ method, is the value that will be returned through the get_ method, even if that variable is changed inside your renderscript during execution.
  • Global pointers are accessed in the reflected component by special methods generated called bind_pointer_name. This will allocate memory for the pointer both in the SDK code and in your renderscript.
Android Framework component
This is the usual Android framework where you have access to the android.renderscript classes as well as the usual things like Activity lifecycle, touch events, etc.  You will access your renderscript from here through the reflected components.

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