defjef Posted June 7, 2002 Share Posted June 7, 2002 How large are your typical files? Are there strategies for decreasing file size? Does file size slow down the save command? Is there a ratio of "acceptable file size" to RAM or something like that? Does adding layers and classes increase file size? What elements in a drawing increase files size significantly... 3d objects... hatches.. text... multiple fonts and sizes... precision setting? Quote Link to comment
Guest Posted June 7, 2002 Share Posted June 7, 2002 All resources in a file contribute to file size. Image based textures are the biggie. If you have a bunch of objects that are complex, converting them to symbols will save a little bit. 3d is also a big file size increaser. There are a number of things you can do to reduce the size of the file - When saving the file, don't save it rendered. Save it in a wireframe. Also switching to a Top Plan view, vs one of the other views will save some kb's as far as file size. The 3d information is stored with the obejcts, but it's not written to the file as far as size. You can also purge unsused objects. You can specify the objects you wish to purge - layers, classes, hatches, textures, etc. This will get rid of the resources and classes and layers that are not being used at all. If you have a class in the drawing but it's not being used for anything, it will get deleted. If you have symbols imported in the drawing, but are not using them, they will get deleted. All of those things will reduce the size of the file when created. Typically a house in VW 8 is about 8-10 megs I am guessing. VW 9 files are a little bigger due to the new type of application VW 9 is. THere is more information that gets written with the files. The size of the file doens't necessarily slow down the save command rather than the ammount of new things added to the file size the last save. If you only added a few things, the save is going to be about the same. If you added a bunch of things and rendered it all and save it in a 3d view, the save is going to take longer as there is more information that needs to be written. [ 06-07-2002: Message edited by: Katie ] Quote Link to comment
defjef Posted June 7, 2002 Author Share Posted June 7, 2002 Thanks for that reply. I find that when my file size becomes 3mb saving begins to take what seems like a long time.. at least noticeably longer.. I see the little hour glass. I also find that, with my save set at 5 minutes... it does not matter how much work I have done once the file reaches that 3+mb size. This is on windows using 8.52. But I notice the same behavior on my G4 and OS9. In fact if I save immediately after saving.. without doing anywork.. it still seems to take time.. when it should take no time at all. What gives? Quote Link to comment
Matthew Giampapa Posted June 7, 2002 Share Posted June 7, 2002 VectorWorks does not do an incremental save like MS Word does. Whenever you save a file, it writes out the whole file to the disk just like when you do a "save as". On the Mac you may find VectorWorks handles this better if you have your disk cache set to a high value. On Windows, make sure your hard disk is running in DMA mode instead of PIO. (Check the device manager to find out) Matthew GiampapaNNA Technical Support Quote Link to comment
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