Improve the time taken to validate and analyse large models

[hsorby]

• Addresses Exponential scaling of Analyser() computation time for large-scale vascular network models #1396.

To run the investigation tests set an environment variable BENCHMARKING_MODEL_ROOT to the root directory of the unzipped contents of the benchmarking files zip in the associated issue.

The longer tests are disabled with the DISABLED_ prefix on the test name, remove this prefix to run the test.

[agarny]

Looks good although I have sped up a few things here and there (see commit messages).

[agarny]

To run the investigation tests set an environment variable BENCHMARKING_MODEL_ROOT to the root directory of the unzipped contents of the benchmarking files zip in the associated issue.

The longer tests are disabled with the DISABLED_ prefix on the test name, remove this prefix to run the test.

I can't see where BENCHMARKING_MODEL_ROOT and the DISABLED_ prefix are being used in this PR...?

[hsorby]

To run the investigation tests set an environment variable BENCHMARKING_MODEL_ROOT to the root directory of the unzipped contents of the benchmarking files zip in the associated issue.
The longer tests are disabled with the DISABLED_ prefix on the test name, remove this prefix to run the test.

I can't see where BENCHMARKING_MODEL_ROOT and the DISABLED_ prefix are being used in this PR...?

I have taken that bit out now, as this was only part of the investigation phase of this work.
It was there for people to be able to run the models given in the associated issue easily.

[agarny]

Looks good to me.

[jmdowrick]

Looks OK to me. Some nice changes.