Resolved Async version of Texture2D.GetPixel()

So, in my project i use textures for my terrain generator, e.g. to determine how much a procedural generation algorithm should blend with others, to create smooth terrain transitions (e.g. 2 different types of Perlin noise algorithms, one for hills and one for mountains).

The only problem is that i like my terrain generator to compute asynchronously to the main thread. Unfortunately the Texture2D.GetPixel() function can only be used on the main thread;

In the current workaround creating a frame drop each time a set of textures is loaded and converted to a Color[ , ] array for the async mesh builder to use.

I was wondering if there would be a alternate method to Texture2D.GetPixel() that could retrieve pixel information from a texture asynchronously.

 

use GPUAsyncReadbacks instead..

 

Oh, I see, you're already in CPU land. You can use Native Arrays/GetRawTextureData a to copy the data into a native array and back into textures bypassing the slow Get/SetPixels APIs.

 

So i tried this function;

Code (CSharp):

1. private Color32[,] textureData;
2. private async void ConvertTexture(Texture2D texture2D, Vector2Int textureSize) {
3.         await Task.Run(() => {
4.             var data = texture2D.GetRawTextureData<Color32>();
5.             var output = new Color32[textureSize.x, textureSize.y];
6.             for (int i = 0, x = 0; x < textureSize.x; i++, x++)
7.             {
8.                 for (int y = 0; y < textureSize.y; y++)
9.                 {
10.                     if (y != 0) i++;
11.                     output[x, y] = data[i];
12.                 }
13.             }
14.             textureData = output;
15.         });
16.     }

And i yet, this function is also, only able to be called from the main thread, getting the exact same error as with GetPixel();

UnityException: get_isReadable can only be called from the main thread.

 

No, you need to use jobs (with burst) and native arrays here, not this. IJobParellelFor is likely what you want..

 

The jobs and burst systems are both very new to unity (Jobs having been marked 'stable' since only a couple months). For this reason i avoided learning and working with any of the systems rumored to become part of the future unity DOTS, until DOTS gets a stable release out there. (cause why not start learning DOTS when DOTS is actually released). However if using unity jobs is the appropriate way of achieving this, i will read into using it when i get back to my terrain generator.

In any case, thanks for the help ^.^