VWX>ENSCAPE - Lags and charging time, workflow tips?

[Felix_]

Hi, 

We are a landscape architecture office, this year we changed our workflow from CAD/Rhino/enscape to Vectorworks/enscape. We can see many advantages already in this transition, however, we see also some big issues. Enscape used to be always open on Rhino and helped us design. Now just opening the escape window takes more than 15min, and it "charges the geometries and material everytime". If I decide to hide something on the file, it never comes back in the enscape I have to close and open it again which is nonsense in our workflow, I can't waste hours waiting for the geomtries and materials to charge again and again. The area is pretty large, the VWX model is pretty large 380MB, it has 800+ BIM trees with 3d escape assets embedded in the 3d geometries of each symbol. We don't even have any plant or furniture assets yet. I have to have these visuals ready by the end of the week, the design ain't gonna change much now, it's just about producing the pictures. 

My machine is powerful, the graphic card drivers are updated, and we use the latest version of Vectorworks (2024+update 1) with the latest version of Enscape (3.5.4). 

 

Do you have a similar experience? Do you have any tips? What can be improved in the workflow? Is there a way to lighten up the VWX file before clicking the escape button to have our "window to the real" in real-time?

Thanks. 

[zoomer]

1 hour ago, felixB said:

Now just opening the escape window takes more than 15min

 

When I read this my first though was, maybe it is a very big Model ....

 

 

1 hour ago, felixB said:

The area is pretty large, the VWX model is pretty large 380MB, it has 800+ BIM trees with 3d escape assets embedded in the 3d geometries of each symbol.

 

And it looks like it is.

 

 

1 hour ago, felixB said:

our workflow from CAD/Rhino/enscape to Vectorworks/enscape.

 

Does that mean that similar large projects worked with Rhino to Enscape flawlessly ?

 

On your current hardware ?

 

1 hour ago, felixB said:

My machine is powerful, the graphic card drivers are updated, and we use the latest version of Vectorworks (2024+update 1) with the latest version of Enscape (3.5.4). 

 

What are the hardware specs exactly ?

 

 

What I mean is that complex projects very likely could lag under limiting Hardware.

If such possible limitations can really be excluded it would be more likely that

the problem has really to do with VW to Enscape exchange.

 

But it could also be a file organization problem.

Like not effectively using Symbol/Block instancing.

 

1 hour ago, felixB said:

800+ BIM trees with 3d escape assets embedded in the 3d geometries of each symbol.

 

For me, coming from VW/Twinmotion, embedding Enscape Trees inside of the VW Tree Symbols,

looks a bit strange. I would have expected that VW Tree Symbols get replaced by Enscape Assets

in Enscape.

So for now I would think that the Plant Symbols containing both geometries, may cause some

redundant geometries or general problems inside Enscape.

 

But maybe there is no other way to organize the Plant Symbol replacement for Enscape exchange (?)

 

 

1 hour ago, felixB said:

it has 800+ BIM trees

 

I think the number of Tree "Instances" in File is not primarily the problem.

It is the number Tree types you use.

E.g. if you use 8+ Laubwerk Trees, it can already slow down VW itself significantly.

[Felix_]

6 minutes ago, zoomer said:

 

Does that mean that similar large projects worked with Rhino to Enscape flawlessly ?

 yes it did. 

 

On your current hardware ?

yes

 

What are the hardware specs exactly ?

Processor    Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700 CPU @ 3.20GHz, 3192 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s)
Installed Physical Memory (RAM)    64,0 GB DDR4 2667MHz

NVIDIA Quadro P2000

    Driver version:    31.0.15.3758 / Driver date:    04/10/2023 / DirectX version:    12 (FL 12.1) / Dedicated GPU memory  5,0 GB

 

For me, coming from VW/Twinmotion, embedding Enscape Trees inside of the VW Tree Symbols,

looks a bit strange. I would have expected that VW Tree Symbols get replaced by Enscape Assets

in Enscape.

So for now I would think that the Plant Symbols containing both geometries, may cause some

redundant geometries or general problems inside Enscape.

But maybe there is no other way to organize the Plant Symbol replacement for Enscape exchange (?)

 

The thing is that we created our own "plant" symbols using the city's 2d plant sympols and the 3d enscape symbols, so our plan looks like it should and our renderings looks like enscape renderings, the 3d symbols have the colors green which is enough for the IFC model shared with other designers.

  

 

 

I think the number of Tree "Instances" in File is not primarily the problem.

It is the number Tree types you use.

E.g. if you use 8+ Laubwerk Trees, it can already slow down VW itself significantly.

 

So far we use only 2 of this plant, we want to increase to 7 diferent plant as shown above....

 

[zoomer]

28 minutes ago, Felix_ said:

Does that mean that similar large projects worked with Rhino to Enscape flawlessly ?

 yes it did. 

 OK

 

 

28 minutes ago, Felix_ said:

On your current hardware ?

yes

 

What are the hardware specs exactly ?

Processor    Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700 CPU @ 3.20GHz, 3192 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s)
Installed Physical Memory (RAM)    64,0 GB DDR4 2667MHz

NVIDIA Quadro P2000

    Driver version:    31.0.15.3758 / Driver date:    04/10/2023 / DirectX version:    12 (FL 12.1) / Dedicated GPU memory  5,0 GB

 

OK,

something to consider.

But on the other hand, nowadays, 5 GB VRAM isn't that much.

(E.g. on my PC I upgraded to a RX6800 with 16 GB VRAM, 2 years ago)

And I read of Enscape projects not loading and their Forum Support said

the model does simple not fit into GPU VRAM ...

 

But anyway,

1. it worked with the Rhino workflow before already on your machine

2. this VW project does open, just it takes long time

 

 

35 minutes ago, Felix_ said:

we created our own "plant" symbols using the city's 2d plant sympols and the 3d enscape symbols

 

 So It hink we can exclude the redundant 3D geometry problem idea ....

Everything of your custom plant symbols sounds reasonable.

 

The 2D Symbols do not look like they could cause any problems.

But I am not sure if putting Enscape assets into another VW Symbol container

could cause issues. As these are already Symbols (?)

Unlikely though, as it would just be like other nested Symbols ....

 

 

41 minutes ago, Felix_ said:

So far we use only 2 of this plant,

 

So, (so far), also not the problem.

And I think it should not be problematic to finally use 20-30 or more assets.

Especially if these are specifically from Enscape.

 

 

I would do a test.

If you create a copy of the file and delete half of the plant instances,

would it load in 7 instead of 15 minutes .... or much faster ....

(Or maybe also test by delete the city model to narrow down what works and what not)

Or do have an option to test the file on a Desktop or more capable machine ?

 

So far I am running a bit out of ideas .....

 

 

2 hours ago, Felix_ said:

Is there a way to lighten up the VWX file before clicking the escape button to have our "window to the real" in real-time?

 

I think the Exchange will only load what is currently visible in the Viewport ........

So you could just switch of some unneeded Layers or Classes temporarily

or create some Saved Views if you want to switch between such visibility setups

later again.