Qt vs. ElectronA Point Cloud Performance Comparison &Investigation of the Qt Framework

Sammanfattning: Frameworks for developing cross-platform applications come in many forms, and depending on thefunctionality of the developed application, some platforms may be a better choice. Applications workingwith point cloud models consist of huge amounts of data points, created by scanning an objectwith a laser scanner which can then be loaded into the software for display and interaction.This study looks at performance differences between two cross-platform desktop application frameworks,Qt and Electron, working with point clouds by performing an experiment. Two prototypeswere used to measure the differences in the time it takes to create the point cloud, allocated memoryfor the data points, and also the average frames per second achieved throughout a rotation sequenceinitiated on the point cloud. This study is conducted on-sight at an organization currently using theQt framework and wanted to investigate potential differences with an HTML5 framework. This studyalso investigates what expert practitioners working with the Qt framework experience its strength andlimitations are, by conducting semi-structured interviews to gain in-depth knowledge.This study found that the differences between the frameworks can not be drawn clearly, as thereare a lot of variables influencing performance outcomes. However, under these conditions Qt generallyperformed better on all occasions. Performance is one way to measure an application and framework,and this study found that working with the Qt framework has its strong points as well as weaknesses.The performance and cross-platform capabilities of Qt are well-liked, but it can come at the cost ofpoor documentation and high complexity of developing bigger applications. Using QtQuick (QML) todevelop the GUI is generally appreciated for how it separates the front-end GUI from C++ togetherwith the available modules. However, it can take time to learn QML and may not completely removethe need of C++ development.