What is slowing down working on the sheet drawing?

[dfmcleod]

Hi all,

Im experiencing major slowdown working on my sheet!!

am I doing something seriously wrong?

at the moment zooming in and out of the sheet means I experience major lag

and going in to annotate viewports is painful.

I have 3 regular hidden line viewports

2 projected openGL + Hidden line viewports and 2 section viewports

too many viewports??

Its not as bad as it was, (I had ungrouped certain bolts and converted to generic solids at one point. that ground everything to a halt. Things sped back up once I replaced them)

but I cant find anything else in particular that would slow me down!?

Can some wise Vectorworker take a look at the file and tell me what I've got on there thats killing my productivity and offer a few tips to work better??

crane file

many thanks in advance

-Deano

Edited July 17, 2016 by dfmcleod

[Kevin McAllister]

Hi Deano,

Can you add a signature to your profile listing your system details like mine (go up under My Stuff at the top of the forum page)?

I opened your file and regenerated the viewports. It doesn't cause any trouble on my system, which is fairly old. I can easily navigate around the sheet layer and in and out of the annotations. I suspect it may just be your computer specs. The number of viewports and the amount of detail aren't unusual.

You might find turning on Save Viewport Cache may help you (under File>Document Settings>Document Preferences on the Display tab). You could also try making the bolts into a symbol, which may reduce your file size slightly.

Sorry that I'm not of more help.

Kevin

[dfmcleod]

Hi Kevin,

Thank you!

Worrying that it seems to be my computer/settings rather then my file but that might help get to the bottom of things,

it looks like it was the section viewports for me.

to workaround I had to convert both the section viewports to groups and put my annotations for them in another scaled viewport not showing any other layers...

One thing I've noticed is that things will slowdown if my viewports need updating and my viewports always need an update if ive gone in to edit an annotation. I dont remember this being the case with vw2012 (the last version im familiar with!)

[Kevin McAllister]

Hi Kevin,

Thank you!

Worrying that it seems to be my computer/settings rather then my file but that might help get to the bottom of things,

I don't think it is. Your system is similar to mine.

it looks like it was the section viewports for me. to workaround I had to convert both the section viewports to groups and put my annotations for them in another scaled viewport not showing any other layers...

Maybe. I can't test that because they are already converted in the version you posted.

One thing I've noticed is that things will slowdown if my viewports need updating and my viewports always need an update if ive gone in to edit an annotation. I dont remember this being the case with vw2012 (the last version im familiar with!)

You need to turn on Save Viewport Cache as I detailed in my last post. Doing that will solve what you're describing. Viewports should only need updating after editing the design layer or sometime after you undo something involving them.

Kevin

[SamIWas]

I have no problems navigating your file once the viewports have been updated. But updating the viewports takes 2-3 minutes. Haven't tried caching.

My Macbook is very similar, just a 2.5 from Mid 2015.

I always have to wait for hidden line renders...they seem to take a while.

[AlanW]

Hi,

I think the bolts are creating a lot of render time. May need to look at creating or converting them to generic solids and making them all symbols to minimise the render time.

Nice model

HTH

Edited July 17, 2016 by Alan Woodwell

[michaelk]

See if this is a bit faster:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4410711/CRANE%20WORKING_%20v2016%7E.vwx

A couple things I changed:

1. The sheet layer DPI was set to 15. I assume you did that to speed up the rendering. But that's no way to live. Changed to 150.

2. Vectorworks > Preferences > 3D Tab > 3D conversion was set to very high. Start with Low and if you have a lot of curved objects move it up one notch at a time.

3. Same with Open GL settings in the viewports. Start with Low and move them up if you have curved geometry.

4. The bolts are killing you. I changed them to regular solids and made them into symbols. Use symbols whenever you have two or more of the same object. Then VW only has to render it once. So I made the bolts into symbols, the ladder rungs into symbols and the feet into symbols.

It's still not zippy like it should be, so there may be more to be done. But this will get you started.

hth

mk

[Kevin McAllister]

2. Vectorworks > Preferences > 3D Tab > 3D conversion was set to very high. Start with Low and if you have a lot of curved objects move it up one notch at a time.

Just to clarify, I believe this is an overall setting for VW on your system. It is not file specific....

3. Same with Open GL settings in the viewports. Start with Low and move them up if you have curved geometry.

I think you could also make the Sheet Layer environment faster by switching from Hidden Line rendering on the Sheet Layer Viewports to OpenGL with Edges On.

Use symbols whenever you have two or more of the same object. Then VW only has to render it once.

I'm not sure this is true. I don't think VW symbols are like C4D instances which do save render time. They will definitely shrink your file size though which will have an affect on speed.

KM

[michaelk]

Kevin

I thought the same thing about the system settings for 3D conversion. But mine was set to low in the drawing I had open and in all my template files. When I opened df's file it was set to Very High. Later I opened another blank file and it was set to Low. Can't explain.

I've found Open GL edges to be a heaver line weight than desired. And not as smart about objects that are perfectly aligned (esp walls and slabs). And no renderworks texture hatches w/o hidden line.

I'm sure you're right about rendering vs file size with symbols. There are many good reasons to use symbols. But faster rendering probably isn't one of them.

mk

[Kevin McAllister]

Thanks Michael,

I thought the same thing about the system settings for 3D conversion. But mine was set to low in the drawing I had open and in all my template files. When I opened df's file it was set to Very High. Later I opened another blank file and it was set to Low. Can't explain.

Interesting and sort of scary..... I wonder if JimW can confirm.

I've found Open GL edges to be a heaver line weight than desired. And not as smart about objects that are perfectly aligned (esp walls and slabs). And no renderworks texture hatches w/o hidden line.

I've had mixed results too. But I've had all sorts of trouble with Hidden Line lately so I've been exploring the two alternatives (OpenGL with draw edges or Custom RW with draw edges)

One day someone will write the definitive guide to speeding things up :-) , just in time for it to no longer be necessary....

Kevin

[bcd]

To my eye/clock Hidden line spends multiple extra time calculating all the unnecessary faceting of the fore-most polygons and the faceted invisible polygons in a scene. At a guess I would say 5x or 10x

I conjecture that it has to do with the unjoined faceted polygons and additional edge lines that Hidden Line creates.

There is also an issue when simply panning a Sheet Layer which contains a Hidden Line rendered Viewport seems to cause VW to recalculate those millions of facets all over again.

desk-time is finite