Can I use the layout components for item layout, without the overhead of rendering the items to the window?

[Stefan Monov76]

I want to render a QML subtree manually to a Canvas3D by having all the subtree's items' be-texture-source flag (layer.enabled) enabled, and taking the geometry (x, y, width, height) of each item from the corresponding QML properties of each item (calculated by layouts, anchors, etc), so I know how to position and size each item with OpenGL calls.

I have no problems with implementing this, except for a performance issue: since I'm drawing the items in OpenGL, I don't want Qt to also draw them to the window (this would be doing the same work twice). I could achieve that easily by setting opacity: 0 on the items, but that would probably only fix the visual problem, it wouldn't save performance. I could also set visible: false but then I think the layout components wouldn't be able to do their job correctly.

The reasons I want to implement the described architecture are:

• I want to implement custom rendering for some of the items in the subtree, but still use their positions and sizes (calculated by the layout for me) for the custom rendering. This custom rendering is complex enough that it can't be done with QML features alone, and I don't want to use Qt3D.
• I could use use another approach: use a separate Canvas3D for every item that I want to render customly. And let Qt Quick render the rest of the items for me normally. That's what I've been doing until now. The problem, however, is that:
  1. The different Canvas3Ds can't share GL resources, so I need to initialize and keep copies of the GL resources in each Canvas3D. This increases load time and memory usage.
  2. The creation time of each Canvas3D (even without my GL init code) is significant, I think

So instead I want to use a single, big Canvas3D.