Benchmark results comparing the AKTIVE and NETPBM readers

Summary

• Comparable formats (binary), and modes (file, Tcl_Channel).

• The AKTIVE reader is between 2 and 5 times slower than NETPBM, despite the recent boost.

  • When using 8 threads, matching the number of CPU cores, the faktor is 4.

• Format differences:

  • AKTIVE stores doubles, 8 bytes, per pixel.

    • Versus NETPBM's single byte per pixel.

  • AKTIVE requires endian conversion (byte shuffling).

    • Whereas NETPBM converts to double and scales.

• Thus

  • AKTIVE reads more, with simple processing.
  • NETPBM reads much less, with more complex processing.

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