All Possible Things I Can Be Doing To Keep File Sizes Down

[Chame_liam]

Alrighty, talk to me like it's my first day, no suggestion is too basic. 

 

I have a number of files that I'm working on at the moment that have ballooned in size quite dramatically, quite quickly. The worst one grew to about 5.5gb in 2 weeks. It's not a huge drama when I'm working by myself as I'm on very quick hardware and have a very quick internet connection in the office but it does get cumbersome when having to share things with others.

 

Over the last couple of years I have gone from just working doing entertainment lighting in Vectorworks (mostly using PIOs) to doing whole production, venue, scenic and site drawings. So my use of tools has gotten wider and I am modelling lots and lots. 

 

I know one thing that I'm not doing that will help dramatically is referencing anything that doesn't need to be in the drawing but I'd like to hear about workflows around this when having to consistently be sharing versions of my files with colleagues and external people. 

 

One other specific thing that I'm interested in is any modelling tips to keep file size down. I have one particular project at the moment that is requiring more accuracy on the drafting end than anything I have ever worked on. It's an entirely custom build on a super short time line and there's no time for mistakes. So my modelling has been super detailed so I can be as confident of not having fabrication issues as possible. But some of these models are ending up at more than 200mb.

 

One particular one that comes to mind did involve me bringing in some components that came across as .STEP files so I know this isn't helping but again, would love to hear about peoples' workflows for handing these.

 

Thanks!

[Sebastiaan]

There is a Coffee Break seminar on the VW university about exactly this subject. It might be worth it to watch that one. 
 

some tips may be unexpected like images used in a title block can increase file size. 

[unearthed]

Make sure your raster files are not at greater pixel densities than your display of them, e.g. 300dpi versus 600dpi. I sometimes degrade high-res imagery, or run a monochrome set for my own use.

 

Sometimes I'll vectorise an image (e.g. using wintopo.exe, or via QGIS) , e.g. where image is line art, and I get dramatically smaller files size

 

If it occurs more than once it should be a symbol.

 

Do you have access to Acad or Bricscad, or any dwg editor so you can clean incoming files?

 

[zoomer]

2 hours ago, unearthed said:

Do you have access to Acad or Bricscad, or any dwg editor so you can clean incoming files?

 

I have.

 

But if not, it is always worth to bring the DWG in by a shuttle file for examination

and run VW's Purge Command. And add a Prefix to ACAD Layers when importing

to get ordered Classes in VW.

 

 

3 hours ago, unearthed said:

Make sure your raster files are not at greater pixel densities than your display of them, e.g. 300dpi versus 600dpi. I sometimes degrade high-res imagery, or run a monochrome set for my own use.

 

Images and Textures or most times the biggest part of file size.

So beside using wise resolutions, Purge also helps to clean up Resources no more in use.

 

 

5 hours ago, Chame_liam said:

One other specific thing that I'm interested in is any modelling tips to keep file size down. I have one particular project at the moment that is requiring more accuracy on the drafting end than anything I have ever worked on. It's an entirely custom build on a super short time line and there's no time for mistakes. So my modelling has been super detailed so I can be as confident of not having fabrication issues as possible. But some of these models are ending up at more than 200mb.

 

Avoid loading in complex Meshes, especially curved geometry.

In some cases it may be worth to rebuild these or parts of it by VW Solids.

Use Symbols wherever a part is used more than one time. Use nested Symbols

for variants. (E.g. a seating combination Symbol (1 table Symbol + 6 chair Symbols))

Do as much complexity as possible already in 2D , e.g. for Extrudes, instead of

later Add/Subtract Solid operations as those may tend to degrade roundings.

 

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

Good topic for a Saturday morning.  It is actually dialing into what I am working on.  

Vectorworks Native model.  When I finish a model that I have been rendering within Vectorworks, I always copy the model and paste it into a new file.  That clears away extraneous data.  I prefer it to Purge.

 

Importing 3D Data.   I have imported files that have come from CAD programs like Solidworks that are just like they were modelled in VW's.  Others...not so much.

Very often, a file will come in all polygons.  It appears a mesh, but polygons.  Either are problematic.  

 

Within Vectorworks.

Recently I was asked if I could fix a 25 years old 3D ACAD files that was 280 MB, all individual polygons.  By selecting some entities, I could do a "Add Solid",  but this did not reduce the file size, but does make it easier to move the model.  1000 polygons that are connected move much faster than 1000 polygons that are separate.

 

This did not solve the problem though and it was difficult to extract the polygons I wanted to connect.

 

Workflow using external method.

I exported the files to CINEMA 4D and used the "Combine Project" command.  This will connect all the polygons.  

Then I use the "Polygon Reduction" tool to remove excess polygons.  In many cases it reduced by 90 %.

Export from CINEMA 4D an STL file.

Import to VW's

The file size was cut down by 50 percent, but much faster as I only had 34 objects as opposed to 600,000.

Edited March 23 by VIRTUALENVIRONS