Why is this file slowing down everything ?

[Dubman]

I am working on a resort layout, just lines, solid fills, & symbols, all 2D. The file size is 8734 KB, everything I do has a major delay. I have now moved sections of rooms to other layers, 8 different layers so I can work on an area with out much delays. I also made 3 small rooms along with one big room a symbol to save file size & try to speed my work flow up, but it is not making anything faster.

Any suggestions

attached is a PDF of the whole drawing visible

[PVA - Admin]

If you're file is only 8MB then it isn't a file size issue, you probably very efficiently and correctly used symbols to get it that size.

I have seen a number of unusually high delay reports from users with section viewports recently, if you can send me your file at tech@vectorworks.net I'll add it to the currently open ticket for testing.

[Art V]

It looks like a PDF converted to either DWG and then imported into Vectorworks or a messy DWG file imported into Vectorworks.

(giveaway is the "Simplex Bold font" which is an AutoCAD (or compatible) shx font.

The result of such a conversion is that you often end up with lots of polyline fragments with lots of vertices etc., possibly even 3D polylines if you have bad luck. Did you do a count of how many objects you have in the drawing?

The whole combination can slow down vectorworks quite a bit if it has to render a ton of small 3D polylines in 3D section viewports.

[PVA - Admin]

^ This is also possible, those types of polys could really slow the visualization down but wouldn't dramatically affect file size and section viewports containing them would compound the speed problem.

[Dubman]

This is a Vectorworks created file, no dwg imports. The fill/hatching are polygons & yes there are many. The Simplex font was chosen for the look. This will be a set dressing piece for a tv show I'm working on.

[Art V]

When I look at the toilets it really looks like a converted PDF or messy dwg file, they're not continuous polylines but a series of small non-continuous polylines, this is typical for a converted PDF from a DWG file or a PDF converted to DWG. Which is why I was mentioning it.

Did you receive the file from someone or did you create it yourself? If you received the file then you may have been informed incorrectly.

Edited March 16, 2016 by Art V

[Dubman]

Yes I created this file myself all in vectorworks, the toilets are symbols from vectorworks. Nothing was imported. I just exported it as a typical PDF at 300 dpi

[PVA - Admin]

Found the issue, the sink/faucet and toilets are made up of thousands and hundreds of lines respectively. The left sink handle alone is something around 3500 lines which is entirely too many for such a simple object in 2D.

Edit the 2d component of the symbol being used for the apartment/room, then ungroup the sinks and toilets. Select the clusters that make up the faucet, handles and toilets separately and you can use Modify > Compose to reduce the geometry significantly, I was able to reduce one handle from 3000 or so lines to 438 lines/polys which if done to all instances within the symbol (which would then automatically be updated to all instances of the symbol) should speed things up significantly. There is also a lot of extraneous linework around these fixtures that could simply be deleted.

However you can clean it up even more by creating symbols of these items instead of just the duplicate groups that exist now if you want to go further.

[Dubman]

Thank you very much Jim, the components you mentioned were VW 3D symbols that I converted copy to lines. The original file was made in VW version 2015 & then saved to 2016 today. I will rework this file completely.

Thanks again!

[PVA - Admin]

That would explain it! in the future you can use another trick:

If you have a 3D object or symbol you want a 2D version of, make a quick viewport of that geometry, then set the viewport to Hidden Line, THEN convert that viewport to lines. It will create far fewer lines and generally be much closer to a simple 2D approximation of what you want. (You can do this with a Top in your case, or a side, front or back view if you need a 2D representation in an elevation, for instance.)

I think if you just render in Hidden Line on the design layer and then convert to lines it'll give you the 3D wireframe version like you have in this file.

[Dubman]

Thanks Jim, also I must forgive myself, I just found out, this file I copied the floor plan from was partly created from a SketchUp File converted to a dwg file, that is why so many line segments. I did the first one that way because they need something quick for a meeting, since then I have made my own file with the 3d line converted fixtures. I learned a valuable lessen not to use converted SketchUp file imports. I usually trace them. I forgot about this due to do many version of this same type of drawing.

Now this same drawing size is 1057 KB.

Works much better, thanks for helping me figure out what I was doing wrong!

[unearthed]

Do you have a copy of sketchup yourself? If you do there are better ways of processing SI files to increase the dwg quality, ask me about that or ask generally on here - quite a few using SU now.

[Dubman]

Yes I own Version 2016 Sketchup which is usually what my bosses give me to do construction drawings from. I sometimes export a dwg from sketchup & place on bottom layer & trace over it to have better control of continuous lines & to eliminate this type of problem. So any advise on how to better export out of sketchup would be great.

Thanks!