space tool

[Axel Hauschild]

hi, I were running into problems with the space tool. It seems to me that there is a limit of spaces you can set up, before the 

software will get slow. I'm working on a project with 85 apartments/≥ 5 rooms each , where I set up spaces for running a calculation

> Area and costs. For me a normal setup those times, and an essential part of any BIM setup. 

The problem is that Vectorworks  is so slow, that shifting / activating classes takes 5-10 seconds. 

I isolated the spaces in a separate drawing, and since than Vectorworks runs well - but that can't be the solution 2024.

Does anyone has the same problems or can help me with a solution ?

> I work with VW architect, 2024 on Mac.

All the best  & thanks  _ Axel

[Pat Stanford]

What hardware are you running on?

[Axel Hauschild]

MacBook Pro M1 

[rDesign]

How much RAM? 

[zoomer]

10 hours ago, rDesign said:

How much RAM? 

 

 

When you have your project opened and it starts to lag,

open Activity Monitor, Memory Tab and watch the memory

pressure graph at the bottom.

As long as the curve stays green, everything should be ok.

But when it switches to yellow it will get slow and you will

need more RAM.

 

Easier said than done as there is no option to increase memory

afterwards or my M1 Mini even was already maxed out with

its only 16 GB offer.

 

 

15 hours ago, Axel Hauschild said:

I isolated the spaces in a separate drawing, and since than Vectorworks runs well

 

Does not necessarily mean that VW Spaces are the culprit.

Could be that you exceeded the limits with your project in general.

E.g. maybe when deleting 20% of the building, it may run fine - with Spaces.

Or maybe that Spaces are memory hungry and work inefficient.

 

[Axel Hauschild]

Thanks all for the messages and help. I have 16GB ram, and just ran the activity monitor.

2 drawings, one VW file without the spaces uses 5.9 GB, the one with spaces 6,44 GB + still 3GB left, or not used.

Even there are 3GB left, shifting classes is still slow. 

I will try as a next step to divide the VW file / divide the project and see if that is helping.

Even though that can't be the solution for a project that size.

 

all the best from Denmark + happy new year

Axel 

[zoomer]

2 hours ago, Axel Hauschild said:

just ran the activity monitor.

2 drawings, one VW file without the spaces uses 5.9 GB, the one with spaces 6,44 GB + still 3GB left, or not used.

 

So that sounds like your memory pressure graph is still all green (?)

So there should not be any lag.

 

2 hours ago, Axel Hauschild said:

I will try as a next step to divide the VW file / divide the project and see if that is helping.

Even though that can't be the solution for a project that size.

 

You can try if that helps but I agree, can't be a solution.

 

 

It would have been easy if your memory would have got yellow/brownish ....

We could have said you have too less memory/weak computer.

And very likely it would work fine on a 128 GB Mac Studio.

 

But if memory pressure stays green, I see no Mac limitation reason for VW

suddenly starting to lag after exceeding a certain number of Spaces .......

Maybe you can send your files to VW Support, that they can check if

everything really works as designed.

[shorter]

Are all the spaces 'loose' i.e. not inside symbols or design layer viewports?

 

Are they all linked/associated to walls, i.e. if the walls move the space boundary updates automatically?

 

It used to be that the integrated space label, would slow vectorworks down exponentially, to the point that around 100 spaces would make it unusable.  With the advent of the data tag, we have never used the integral label.  If you are using space styles, try turning off the option to show the label, and place data tags instead in a separate layer and see if that helps.  You can redistribute the data tage quite easily.  It will read data already in the space.