removing SCNNode does not free memory before creating new SCNNode

Question

I am building an app that uses Scenekit to display a scene based on information returned from a data base. I have created a custom class with a class func that creates a SCN

Answer 1

I had the same problem, with my SceneKit app leaking a lot of memory. The memory of the SCNNode is freed if you set its geometry property to nil before letting Swift deinitialize it.

Here is an example of how you may implement it:

class ViewController: UIViewController {
    @IBOutlet weak var sceneView: SCNView!
    var scene: SCNScene!

    // ...

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        scene = SCNScene()
        sceneView.scene = scene

        // ...
    }

    deinit {
        scene.rootNode.cleanup()
    }

    // ...
}

extension SCNNode {
    func cleanup() {
        for child in childNodes {
            child.cleanup()
        }
        geometry = nil
    }
}