Reducing Polyline Size

[MattG]

I am sure this has been brought up many times, but does anyone know a good way to reduce the file size of a drawing that has a large quantity of polylines? In this case I have a 2D drawing of some artwork made in illustrator. I exported the illustrator file to a .dwg and imported it. When I opened it it would up looking good and correct. My issue is that the artworks was pretty detailed and I do not need that level of detail for my purposes. I am hoping there is a command that I do not know about that would allow me to reduce the polyline count/size.

Anyone have a technique for this?

Matt

[Benson Shaw]

VectorBits Optimize Drawing has a simplify poly command with a tolerance setting which might help here, and a compose command, too. But:

It operates on the whole drawing - all polys in the drawing, on all layers are converted, not just the selected ones. And the undo history is deleted. So if drawing file contains polys not meant for conversion, copy items to convert to a new file, convert them, and copy back to orig. Polys in symbols seem to be immune, but not polys in groups.

It does not necessarily convert with equal spacing btw the vertices, so curved shapes may have long facets and short facets.

May need to use VW Poly Smoothing command after the conversion.

Check Vectorbits.com for pricing. It has lots of features and commands beyond the Simplify Poly.

-B

[Rossford]

Matt,

I have that VW Bit simpify poly add on and it works great. When I have to transfer files to ACAD. As it happens, VW polylines convert to literally thousands of vertices.

What I also did before I got that plug in was to convert my polylines to 3D polygons, use that VW simply 3D poly command (comes with Landmark) to reduce vertices, and then convert that back to a 2D poly. It will retain the same number of vertices as the 3D poly.

[Rossford]

BTW, if you buy the simplify poly plug in, it comes with one setting - simplifying to .1. I copied the script in the resource browser several times, and went near the end. There, you will find where it sets the distance value to .1, but you can change it on your copy (ies) to .2, or whatever.

I actually turned that into 4 or 5 scripts, finding some polys need to be simplified more than the standard setting. So, rather than changing the .1 in the pop up dialog box, I simply pick the script that I know from experience will get it close to the final product I want.

Does anyone know if the VW "Simplify 3D poly" script can be accessed and modified similarly?

Thanks in advance.

Edited September 12, 2011 by Rossford