ArcObjects Library Reference (Carto)  

IActiveView.PartialRefresh Method

Draws the specified view phase. Use an envelope of zero to draw the entire phase.

[Visual Basic .NET]
Public Sub PartialRefresh ( _
    ByVal phase As esriViewDrawPhase, _
    ByVal Data As Object, _
    ByVal envelope As IEnvelope _
)
[C#]
public void PartialRefresh (
    esriViewDrawPhase phase,
    object Data,
    IEnvelope envelope
);
[C++]
HRESULT PartialRefresh(
  esriViewDrawPhase phase,
  LPUNKNOWN Data,
  IEnvelope* envelope
);
[C++]

Parameters

phase [in]

  phase is a parameter of type esriViewDrawPhase

Data [in]   Data is a parameter of type LPUNKNOWN envelope [in]

  envelope is a parameter of type IEnvelope

Product Availability

Available with ArcGIS Engine, ArcGIS Desktop, and ArcGIS Server.

Remarks

The main application window is controlled by a view (IActiveView).  ArcMap currently has two view objects: Map (data view) and PageLayout (layout view).  Each view has a ScreenDisplay object which performs drawing operations. The ScreenDisplay object also makes it possible for clients to create any number of caches.  A cache is an off screen bitmap representing the application's window.  Instead of drawing directly to the screen, graphics are drawn into caches, then the caches are drawn on the screen.  When the application's window is obscured and requires redrawing, it is done so from the caches instead of from a database.  In this way, caches improve drawing performance - bitmap rendering is faster than reading and displaying data from a database.

In general, the Map creates three caches: one for all the layers, another if there are annotation or graphics, and a third cache if there is a feature selection.  A layer can create its own private cache if it sets ILayer::Cached equal to TRUE.  In this case, the Map will create a separate cache for the layer and groups the layers above and below it into different caches.

IActiveView::PartialRefresh uses its knowledge of the cache layout to invalidate as little as possible.  IActiveView::Refresh , on the other hand, invalidates all the caches which is very inefficient.  Use PartialRefresh whenever possible. 

Both PartialRefresh and Refresh call IScreenDisplay::Invalidate which sets a flag clients watch for.  Clients draw a cache from scratch (the database) if its flag is set to true, and from cache if the flag is set to false.

The following table shows the phases each view supports and what they map to:

phase Map Layout
esriViewBackground   Map grids  Page/snap grid
esriViewGeography  Layers Unused
*esriViewGeoSelection  Feature selection Unused
esriViewGraphics   Labels/graphics Graphics
esriViewGraphicSelection  Graphic selection Element selection
esriViewForeground   Unused Snap guides

To specify multiple draw phases, combine individual phases together using a bitwise OR. This is equivalent to adding together the integer enumeration values. For example, pass 6 to invalidate both the esriViewGeography (2) and esriViewGeoSelection (4) phases.

Use the data parameter to invalidate just a specific piece of data.  For example, if a layer is loaded and its cache property is set to TRUE, this layer alone can be invalidated.  A tracking layer is a good example of this.

The envelope parameter specifies a region to invalidate.  For example, if a graphic element is added, it is usually only necessary to invalidate the immediate area surrounding the new graphic.

Both the data and envelope parameters are optional. 

*When selecting features, you must call PartialRefresh twice, once before and once after the selection operation.

See Also

IActiveView Interface | IActiveView.PartialRefresh Method | esriViewDrawPhase Constants | IActiveView.ScreenCacheID Property | IActiveView.Refresh Method | IScreenDisplay.Invalidate Method

.NET Snippets

Clear Selected Map Features | Add Shapefile Using OpenFileDialog | Create Graphic Buffers around Selected Features | Select Map Features by Attribute Query |

.NET Samples

Add a custom menu created in .NET to ArcGIS Desktop (Code Files: AddShapefile) | Custom reshape polyline edit task (Code Files: ReshapePolylineEditTask) | Layer property page and property sheet (Code Files: LayerVisibilityPage) | RSS weather layer (Code Files: AddRSSWeatherLayer WeatherItemSelectionDlg) | Using the traversal result to select source features (Code Files: SelectFeaturesTool) |

.NET Related Topics

Adding a custom menu created in .NET to ArcGIS Desktop | Building a map viewing application using the ArcGIS Engine controls | Create a custom tool | Creating and working with basemap layers | How to create map grids | Selection trackers | Working with map surrounds | Working with PageLayout elements |