Files
LEDMatrix/src/common/snapshot_policy.py
ChuckandClaude Opus 5.5 f72d69c2b0 perf(display): skip preview work nobody reads (lazy checksum, 1 Hz snapshot writer) (#717)
Mid-scroll, update_display() no longer checksums every frame: it asks is_currently_scrolling() once per frame and reuses the answer, hashes only when dirty tracking can skip a static frame, and the preview snapshot asks its policy first and hashes only when a write or touch could follow (decide() is monotone, pinned by a property test). With the preview open the snapshot is written at most once a second (VIEWER_INTERVAL 1.0 s, was 0.2 s; the SSE stream re-read it once a second, so four encodes in five went unread); the stream now polls its mtime every 0.25 s (VIEWER_POLL_INTERVAL), so the preview stays about as fresh. The PNG is written at compress_level=1. --preview soaks are not comparable across this change.

Merged with #716: _scan_segments takes the frame's one scrolling answer and #716's static-handover pass-through, as soaked on ledpi (A B B A, 20 min each: main 0.118% / 0.113% late, with #716 and this 0.107% / 0.104%).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-01 20:27:20 -04:00

88 lines
3.9 KiB
Python

"""Snapshot write policy for the display preview mirror.
The display service mirrors frames to /tmp/led_matrix_preview.png, which
serves two consumers with different needs:
- The web UI's live preview (SSE reader in web_interface/app.py) wants
fresh frames — but only while a browser is actually watching.
- The health check (web_interface/blueprints/api_v3/misc.py, hardware status)
uses the file's AGE as a liveness proxy: age >= 60s reads as degraded.
PNG-encoding every frame at 5 fps forever — identical frames, no viewers —
was one of the biggest fixed CPU costs on the Pi. This module is the pure
decision logic (extracted so it's unit-testable off-Pi; display_manager
imports rgbmatrix unconditionally and can't be):
WRITE — encode + atomically replace the snapshot file
TOUCH — os.utime only: keeps the health-check mtime fresh and lets
the SSE reader (mtime-gated) resend at a low rate, without
paying for a PNG encode of an unchanged frame
SKIP — do nothing
Policy:
- With a fresh viewer marker: changed frames write at up to 1/VIEWER_INTERVAL.
- Without viewers: changed frames still write at 1/IDLE_INTERVAL so the
preview page shows something recent on open.
- Unchanged frames are never re-encoded; the mtime is touched every
TOUCH_INTERVAL so the health check (60s threshold) never degrades.
The writer and the SSE reader (web_interface/app.py) have two periods, not
one shared value. The reader sends each write it sees, so the preview shows
at most one frame per VIEWER_INTERVAL. (That was 0.2 s while the reader
slept 1 s between reads, so four encodes in five were overwritten unread.)
The reader checks the file's mtime every VIEWER_POLL_INTERVAL, which is only
a stat, and so sends each write within that long of it landing. Equal
periods would alias: two unsynchronised 1 s clocks leave the preview up to a
second stale, and now and then 2 s between frames.
decide() is monotone in frame_changed: SKIP for a changed frame means SKIP
for an unchanged one. DisplayManager relies on that to skip hashing the
frame when even a changed one would be skipped; test_snapshot_policy.py
checks it.
If any constant here changes, re-check the health threshold in
api_v3/misc.py (get_hardware_status) — TOUCH_INTERVAL must stay well under it.
"""
from enum import Enum
# Snapshot cadence with a browser preview open (seconds): the shortest gap
# between two preview frames.
VIEWER_INTERVAL = 1.0
# How often the web SSE reader checks the snapshot's mtime (seconds). Must
# stay well under VIEWER_INTERVAL -- half of it at most -- or the two clocks
# alias (see above).
VIEWER_POLL_INTERVAL = 0.25
# Snapshot cadence with no viewers — cheap freshness for page-open (seconds).
IDLE_INTERVAL = 30.0
# Max age of the last write/touch before bumping mtime for the health
# check. MUST stay well under get_hardware_status's 60s degraded threshold.
TOUCH_INTERVAL = 20.0
# A viewer marker older than this no longer counts as a live viewer.
VIEWER_MARKER_FRESH_SEC = 5.0
class SnapshotAction(Enum):
WRITE = "write"
TOUCH = "touch"
SKIP = "skip"
def decide(now: float, last_write_ts: float, last_touch_ts: float,
viewer_fresh: bool, frame_changed: bool) -> SnapshotAction:
"""Decide what to do with the current frame.
Args:
now: current monotonic-ish timestamp (same clock as the ts args)
last_write_ts: when a frame was last actually encoded+written
last_touch_ts: when the file mtime was last bumped (write or touch)
viewer_fresh: a browser preview is currently watching
frame_changed: the frame differs from the last WRITTEN frame
"""
interval = VIEWER_INTERVAL if viewer_fresh else IDLE_INTERVAL
if frame_changed and (now - last_write_ts) >= interval:
return SnapshotAction.WRITE
if (now - max(last_write_ts, last_touch_ts)) >= TOUCH_INTERVAL:
return SnapshotAction.TOUCH
return SnapshotAction.SKIP