GUIs on a go slow!

[Rebecca Bennett]

Good Morning hive mind,

I have a small problem that I hope someone will be able to help me troubleshoot.

I teach using the LAStools GUIs as an introduction before moving students onto the command line, however I have found that most of the LAStools GUI interfaces have slowed down to a point where they are unusable - taking more than 30 seconds to respond to a click.

This only appears to be the case for the tools with licence notification pop up, e.g. the lasinfo GUI responds normally but las2dem (and most of the others I've tried!) have this lag.

I would really like to resolve this before my next course as the GUIs are a fundamental introduction to the toolkit which allow non-specialists to get to grips with the steps of lidar processing, before they dive into the command line and batch scripting.

Any ideas or suggestions would be really appreciated!

Best wishes,
Rebecca

[Martin Isenburg]

Hello Rebecca,

so far i have not experienced this myself on my computers, but two students at a workshop held at WSL who were running a particular version of Windows 10 did have the exact same "symptoms" that you describe. However, they noted that older versions of LAStools were running fine. With which version(s) have you had this issue? So far I have not been able to recreate the issue on my Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 laptops. Maybe someone else has experienced this too? On what operating system? Licensed or unlicensed? What LAStools version.

Regards,

Martin

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[Rebecca Bennett]

It is indeed a Windows 10 machine, 64 bit, version 1703 - could that be the link?

I have had this issue on the latest version of LAStools (downloaded on the 29/09/17 - can you let me know where I can find the precise version number in the documentation please?) and one prior to that (apologies I can't remember when I downloaded the previous version - July 17?).

I have scoured my backups but don't have a copy of a previous version of LAStools to try - would you be able to link me to one to test?

Many thanks,
Rebecca

[Chris Hopkinson]

Hi Martin,
just confirming I'm having the exact same problem with my licensed version of the latest LAStools download on my Win 10 64bit laptop.
Cheers, Chris

[Rebecca Bennett]

We have a fix!!! The answer it turns out is in the default graphics processor used to power the GUI.

For reasons unknown that the lastools GUIs were opening with the Integrated graphics processor rather than the high powered one. This behaviour can be changed with a right click on the tool Run with Graphics processor > Change default graphics processor

In the window Browse to the lastools/bin folder and add the current location. Then pick your high performance processor as default and select apply.

Hope this helps!
Rebecca

[Martin Isenburg]

Hello,

happy to hear that. We had completely contradictory experiences on different Windows machines. Some worked like a Windows 10 Home 64 bit (version 1607) of a user at the last workshop had no issues with the latest LAStools version (or any other). Then Rebecca found that other folks on her team on the same build as her (Windows 10 Home, version 1703, OS Build 15063.608) as well as (Windows 10 Pro version 1703, OS Build 15063.608 )also had no problems with slow running LAStools GUIs. That made me suspect the graphics driver might be the culprit, after all, the ugly but useful GUI of LAStools is rendered with OpenGL using GLUI from Paul Rademacher. Somehow Rebecca figured out that this really was the case and even found a fix. Thanks for your diligence, Rebecca!

So if you use the LAStools GUIs and have got stuck with >30 sec delay between clicking a button and seeing the action on screen you need to follow Rebecca's advise. 

I have no Windows 10 so I cannot follow Rebecca's steps. Are they clear? Chris, does this also fix your problem?

Regards,

Martin

[Chris]

Hi all

Thanks for your reports and advise.
It's not working on my laptop with a Intel HD-Graphics 4000. Same problem with other software and slow performance after Windows 10 update reported here:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware/intel-hd-graphics-4000-driver-has-slow-performance/0bd9852c-3bbb-4d32-817d-0079b344d113

Not a LAStools issue...
I manly use the tools from command line - so no big limitation for my work.

Regards,
Chris

[lcer]

Hi,

Rebecca's fix did not work for me, but I found an easy alternative that does work.

It involves the temporary disabling of the integrated Intel graphics card.

Therefore, users of LAStools GUI experiencing slow responses that:

   1. are running Windows 10,

   2. have an integrated Intel HD-Graphics 4000 video card in the motherboard computer (I have a Sony Vaio, model SVS15125CBB), and

   3. have a second video card, running simultaneously (in my case, NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M LE)

   

... first, make sure you have the graphic cards working properly in your system (steps 2 and 3):

    - click Windows-x to access the devices manager windows,

    - click the video adapters to list the video cards,

    - right click each one to access "Properties",

    - check if the message "This device is working properly" in the status box.

Now, simply disable temporarily the Intel video adapter that is causing the conflict with some instances of the GUI:

   - click Windows-x to access the devices manager windows,

   - click the video adapters for a list of video cards, and

   - right click the Intel HD-Graphics 4000 and choose "Disable"  (don´t worry, the system blinks and your video will run solely supported by the second video card).

Voilá ... all LAStools GUI interfaces will run flawlessly ... :-)

 

Best wishes,

Luiz

[Martin Isenburg]

Hello,

a little follow up for those that have issues with slow or non-functional LAStools GUIs on their particular Windows systems. It turns out this issue can also happen on a "a Windows Enterprise 7, 64bit system". see the attached images for how "sad" the GUIs can look and on what kind of operating system this happens. Again it was the graphics card to blame. It was the graphic card (Intel(R) HD Graphics 5500). After disabling it, the GUIs again open nicely. 

Regards from Prague,

Martin

[Brandon Hausmann]

I'm on Win 10 and disabled the Intel 4000. I'm now using my primary GS as NVIDIA Quadro K4000 and still can not get the GUI to browse to my LAZ file to decompress. Any help is appreciated, thank you