Huge File size from importing Sketch-up Models!

[Trenton Thiede]

Hello Vectorworks Think Tank,

 

We are working with an international design team that has built an entire show floor with sketch-up models. I'm doing what i can to reduce file size but its still well over 1 GB. any advice on the best ways to reduce this is very helpful.

The file size is one thing, but since everything is 3D symbols or models the PDF file is well over 200 MB which is pretty much unusable so any tips or tricks to lowering that is helpful.

Thank you very much!

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

I had a similar project last year, although the files came from ACAD originally.  To say it was "brutal", was an understatement.  

 

The original Site Model was 270 MB.  That is not necessarily a big file, but the imported polygons were all individual, so very slow.  (Are your object solid or individual) I began by connecting elements that should be one object, so the computer was only calculating the object location and not the location of each polygon.

 

Then I separated out Classes to Layers.  This was a nightmare in my model.  Some Classes had elements that I needed separate in that class.  I used Custom Selection to extract those objects.

 

All of the above was painful and frustrating, but it was part of the job.  In the end I had a model that could be manipulated very easily.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rDesign]

@Trenton Thiede If this is an ongoing project where you’ll need to periodically reimport the files from the other project team members with design revisions, there’s not much ‘cleaning up’ that you’ll be able to do — since any optimization of 3D symbols / etc would be lost when you reimport the reference files. Hopefully the others are using good file organization methodology. 
 

If you are not expecting to reimport the team SKP files again, there are optimizations that can be done. 
 

As far as large PDF files, there have been a bunch of threads about this on the forum, here are links to a few that I found:

 

[Trenton Thiede]

Skechtup models are all Mesh objects. I'm working on composing them and reducing vertex counts. 

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

Can you post one of your models if it not NDA.  I want to experiment.  Something fairly high in polygon count.

 

 

[Trenton Thiede]

This is one piece of the model VirtualEnviroNS. Not NDA, but not a past show so no publicizing.

Dream house.vwx

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

HI Trenton,

Had a Quick Look, lot of polygons.  Busy tomorrow, but interested in this to see if the size can be reduced.

 

regards....

[Trenton Thiede]

I've simplified a lot of the mesh objects and it seems to help efficiency, but not so much file size. At least the file is not crashing. Need to purge the file still, but its a project file and many hands are working in it so I have to be cautious.

 

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

Good stuff.  How did you simply the mesh if you don't mind me asking?  

 

I am going to see if I can reduce file size with some other tools.

 

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

I looked at this file in anther program that can evaluate things better.  There is a lot of junk in these files.  

 

I reduced two files that I think are problematic for a test.  If you want to take a look and see if they behave better.,

 

WORKING.vwx

Edited February 7 by VIRTUALENVIRONS