can someone plz explain what is garbage collect and how do u use it?

thx

It might be to manually collect and remove temp files after stitching.

Dave

OK, could u please tell me what the VM total memory, and VM Free memory indicate at the bottom and why these numbers change?  Is there a way to increase the free memory for this program, because it takes well over 5 minutes to stich 2 Normal size fisheyes.  Right now i let Windows manage my virtual memory settings (Recommended), or should i manually change it?  I guess i need a faster computer, but really, it's the only program i have that acts super slow.  That's why i wanted to know what garbage collect is.  Any ideas?

Thx

Garbage collect releases memory from the RAM that is no longer needed by the program is my best guess. You should allow Windows as much VM as it wants! It should auto adjust as needed.

Regards, Smooth

I agree.. Garbage collection probably frees up ram.  I knew it cleaned up something.

I have 1gb ram.. and stitching 4 images [23mb each image] takes only 2 - 3 minutes tops.  [WinXPpro Intel 2.8ghz ]

Dave

the problem really started when i installed Norton Antivirus + Utilities, on Windows 98SE.  I also had alot of programs running in the background.

also my kids have used Kazaa (music download with spyware)which caused alot of problems.  I'm getting Panoweaver to work a little faster now, but it's really time to upgrade to a new computer, and a new camera ;-)

That goes to show you how long I've been stitching panos together!  Quite a long time since 1999 with Easypano, and i'm still loving it!!  After all these years, I still have pple say OMG, how'd u do that!!!  lol

Hi,

You are all right!  Garbage collection is supposed to free memory.  It is intimately raleted to the way the JAVA Language works.   Java is a object oriented language meaning that each time a object is constructed, memory is reserved for it.  That memore is not available other application nor to other objects withing the app.  I'm not going to explain what an object is in details but lets give an examples.  In the interface of PW there are buttons, dropdown lists, etc. these are all objects.  They are obvious object because you can see them.   There's probably hundreds of objects that we cannot see because they are used in the background of the application.   An Java Application is built of objects.

Each objects has to be constructed... This mean that memory is allocated for it.   In other languages like C++ you construct an object and you destroy it once you don't need it anymore.  If you forget to destroy your object the memory will stay allocated and will not be available for other programs or other objects. 

That is called a memory leak.  

JAVA does not use destructors.   You construct the object and JAVA is suppose to destroy it when it is not used anymore.  Once in a while JAVA garbage collects all the objects that are not used anymore and therefore frees-up memory so it can be reused.   JAVA takes care of that by itself.  

When programming, there is an instruction that can be used to tell JAVA that you think it would be time for a garbage collection.   It kind of "forces" a garbage collect.   

The Menu you are referencing in this topic was probably placed there by developpers so that they could use it a developpement time.   It is probably a left over.   If it was left there by purpose, it is probably because they add memory leaks problems and were not able to fix it.  In that situation, a quick an dirty fix is to allow the user to ask for garbage collection himself. 

Having to manually aks for garbage collection is the result of poor programmation... By saying that, I don't want to insult the developper at EasyPano... Maybe they did have a choice.  Sometime application developpement brings problems that cannot be solve easily and require a hack of some sort. 

Anyway! Hope this helps understand what garbage collection is

Cheers

Oh by the way! I'm assuming that PW is built in JAVA.  Maybe there are other languages that allow for garbage collection. 

You are right it is Java built.

What must be taken in to perspective is that this Garbage collect is part of the older versions of Panoweaver (dating back to the '90's) it was placed into the program all those years ago when computers were a lot slower and a lot more expensive with a lot less RAM.

Building a panorama has always been heavy on memory and by using the Garbage collect button you could manually tell the program to clean up and free RAM at any point, thus making the most of limited resources.

Regards, Smooth