I am writing a half-assed graphical interface in VB.NET. The reason I say it is half-assed is that this particular interface may have more diagnostic value, and may be scrapped after the system is tested. Therefore, this question is not exactly critical.

I am drawing some number of points on the screen representing items in the field of view, which ranges from 1 to 500 cm deep. No problem there, the screen area is 500 pixels deep. Thus, each point gets a point on the screen, and are nothing but tiny rectangles.

The question arises from the fact that it appears easiest to draw every point within a radius of 500 cm, regardless of whether or not they actually fall into the current field of view. This should be somewhat slow, but that may be ok, as drawing will probably not take place any faster than once every couple seconds.

If there was a way to quickly and easily exclude some or all of the points which are not actually in the current field of view, then it would be good for me to do so. Is there such a technique? I realize it can be done with DirectX types of things, but since this is an interface which may just get thrown out later in the project, I don't feel very motivated to go beyond the simple.