Question

So I have a random question when coding the image processing function that involves time complexity. The following is my original snippet of code:

    long start = System.currentTimeMillis();

    for (int i = 0; i < newWidth; i++) {
        for (int j = 0; j < newHeight; j++) {

            double x = i * scaleX;
            double y = j * scaleY;

            double xdiff = x - (int) x;
            double ydiff = y - (int) y;

            int xf = (int) Math.floor(x);
            int xc = (int) Math.ceil(x);
            int yf = (int) Math.floor(y);
            int yc = (int) Math.ceil(y);

            double out = inputArray[xf][yf] * (1 - xdiff) * (1 - ydiff)
                    + inputArray[xc][yf] * xdiff * (1 - ydiff)
                    + inputArray[xf][yc] * (1 - xdiff) * ydiff
                    + inputArray[xc][yc] * xdiff * ydiff;

            outputArray[i][j] = (int) out;
        }
    }

    long elapsed = System.currentTimeMillis() - start;
    System.out.println("Time used: " + elapsed);

And after coming out with that code, I was wondering whether it would be faster not to create 4 temporary variables for floor and ceiling values but, instead, calculate them directly in array indexing. So I modified it this way:

    long start = System.currentTimeMillis();

    for (int i = 0; i < newWidth; i++) {
        for (int j = 0; j < newHeight; j++) {

            double x = i * scaleX;
            double y = j * scaleY;

            double xdiff = x - (int) x;
            double ydiff = y - (int) y;

            double out = inputArray[(int) Math.floor(x)][(int) Math.floor(y)] * (1 - xdiff) * (1 - ydiff)
                    + inputArray[(int) Math.ceil(x)][(int) Math.floor(y)] * xdiff * (1 - ydiff)
                    + inputArray[(int) Math.floor(x)][(int) Math.ceil(y)] * (1 - xdiff) * ydiff
                    + inputArray[(int) Math.ceil(x)][(int) Math.ceil(y)] * xdiff * ydiff;

            outputArray[i][j] = (int) out;
        }
    }

    long elapsed = System.currentTimeMillis() - start;
    System.out.println("Time used: " + elapsed);

I was expecting the later to be faster (because you don’t have to write to a temporary variable and then access it) but it turned out that the later is, at least, 2.5 times slower than the former code. Test case used is 3x zoom of 1024×768 img.

former code: Time used: 812
later code: Time used: 2140

So what is cause of the time difference?

Answer 1

Q: How many times are you calling “floor” and “ceil” in the first case? The second case? 😉

Q: I’m wondering if this would run any faster than the first case:

    long start = System.currentTimeMillis();

    for (int i = 0; i < newWidth; i++) {
        double x = i * scaleX;
        double xdiff = x - (int) x;
        int xf = (int) Math.floor(x);
        int xc = (int) Math.ceil(x);
        for (int j = 0; j < newHeight; j++) {
            double y = j * scaleY;
            double ydiff = y - (int) y;

            int yf = (int) Math.floor(y);
            int yc = (int) Math.ceil(y);

            double out = inputArray[xf][yf] * (1 - xdiff) * (1 - ydiff)
                    + inputArray[xc][yf] * xdiff * (1 - ydiff)
                    + inputArray[xf][yc] * (1 - xdiff) * ydiff
                    + inputArray[xc][yc] * xdiff * ydiff;

            outputArray[i][j] = (int) out;
        }
    }

    long elapsed = System.currentTimeMillis() - start;
    System.out.println("Time used: " + elapsed);