Storing parameter definitions

[dimven-adsk]

List of Affected Nodes/Modules

Element.GetParameterByName
Element.SetParameterByName

Current Performance

This PR is related to #1, as it affects a similar scenario - finding parameters by their name is expensive. In the previous PR we skip the step getting the parameter definitions but we were still paying the cost of querying an element's parameters by name. In this PR we explore the option of instead caching the results of that query and fetching the element's parameters by the definition. As discussed previously, the current performance is less than ideal:

Proposed Performance

If we have a simple lookup dictionary that stores a list of all found definitions that match that name, it is likely that we can reuse the expected definition. The cache will be used only for the duration of the execution and cleared in case the user modifies the project parameters. By keeping the same parameter priority logic (parameter with latest id is chosen first), we should ensure the original intent is preserved.

Dynamo Tuneup Comparison

Collecting ~55k elements and fetching a single parameter value we drop form around 9 seconds[1] on average down to about 1.5 seconds. Keep in mind that this is an ideal scenario, because all of the elements we collected are from a single category and share the same definition. A mixed collection of parameter names and elements that don't necessarily share the same definition will perform worse.

Checklist

• There are no public function signature changes
• Any public code that is no longer in use is tagged as obsolete and preserved.
• The code changes have been documented
• The overall behavior does not change

[1] The graph was simplified compared to the version in #1