Alpha Mask Slows down performance

[Dominigomes]

Hello there,

I am using a Square Boolean modified to have an alpha mask (according to this document http://www.ni.com/newsletter/51918/en/)

The issue I am facing is that once a dialogue or pop-up vi) needs to be displayed (and therefore the AlphaMask Boolean visibility is set to true) the Interface freezes for several seconds until the new window is fully operational. It does not respond to any user events at all, even the values of the controls takes few seconds to get updated to the correct values.

However, if I replace the Alpha Mask for a standard square Boolean (unmodified) the execution goes back to normal speed and the load of the new window is seamless.

Has anybody else experience any similar issues?

I cannot post my VI due to confidentiality issues, but I could try to provide as much information as I can about the code.

Thanks you very much in advance for your help.

Regards,

[Dominigomes]

Hi everyone,

I have recorded a couple of videos to show the difference in performance:

First loading with the Boolean set to True which contains an image with alpha channel on it:

And then with the Boolean turned to "false" which contains the default background off the control.

Is this a bug? or am I missing something?

Note that the videos are in real speed, there is no editing at all.

Any suggestions?

[NIRebecca]

Hey Dominigomes

The only example I've seen on Alpha Masks is as attached. Do you see the same behaviour here? If not, as an alternate approach, have you considered instead using a visible flag in property nodes?

Kind regards, 

Rebecca

[Dominigomes · Accepted solution]

Hi NIRebecca,

Thanks for your reply.

I have not tried your method but I found a workaround. basically I have created an empty vi in which I programmatically change the background color and the transparency level. Then I just call the Front panel when I need to create the alpha mask and close it afterwards.

I took the idea from one of the comments within the example Iinked in the first post.

I still think there is a bug while using the alpha mask inside a boolean control though...