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Vectorwoks 2016 Keep Crashing because of complex 3D model


FRDRAY

Question

I made a very complicated 3D model like honeycomb but with swept object subtracted. And I duplicated the cell about 200 times then merged into a huge plate with honeycomb structure.

The file size reaches 536mb when I saved it. But today when I came to work, it kept cashing when I tried to switch to this layer after I opened it.

Vectorworks App kept not responding then quite spontaneously. Sometimes my system cashes also, blackout then restarted.

Here is the hardware I use, maybe they are just not good enough?

Screen Shot 2016-09-07 at 12.52.28 PM.png

 

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What is segment angle for your initial sweep object? Sweeps tend to be very geometry heavy. I would recommend bringing down the sweep angle if you can. You could also keep a single copy of your original sweep and convert the version you use to create your honeycomb into a generic solid. Or convert your resulting honeycomb into a generic solid. Before you do, save an archival copy of your file to preserve the history for creating it in case you ever need to edit it. The history inherent in solids operations (subtraction, addition etc.) tends to cause large files.

Kevin

 

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Would it be an option to generate the base honeycomb from a flat 2D surface with the holes as honeycomb/circle/whatever shape you want subtracted from the overall flat 2D surface shape, then extrude this to the required thickness and then morph it into shape? I've done something like that with at least 200 holes to create a honeycomb style plate though the overall shape was not that complex and the resulting file was just over 15 MB. As Kevin mentioned using a sweep can create an overly heavy geometry.

Could you perhaps show a screenshot or two  of what you are trying to create? This might be helpful for us to provide an alternative way of getting the result you want.

Edited by Art V
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@chaz

It seems that the Mac version of VW 2016 is a bit more crash prone than the Windows version. One thing that could help is to move the non-changing items of your model to a new file and then reference to that file, if that would be possible for your model. I've found this may reduce memory requirements sufficiently to reduce the chance of crashes with complex files, ymmv.

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7 minutes ago, Art V said:

@chaz

It seems that the Mac version of VW 2016 is a bit more crash prone than the Windows version. One thing that could help is to move the non-changing items of your model to a new file and then reference to that file, if that would be possible for your model. I've found this may reduce memory requirements sufficiently to reduce the chance of crashes with complex files, ymmv.

I was wondering if referencing might help, thanks for the suggestion. A lot of my files include a large facility auto cad import (2D) with a ton of classes. And then a 3d model of the facility I build. And then I start my actual design project to go inside. I'm going to try referencing the facility and 3d base model.

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8 minutes ago, Art V said:

@chaz

It seems that the Mac version of VW 2016 is a bit more crash prone than the Windows version.

I have only Mac at this time.
But from my Windows days years ago, needing more RAM than physical available in Windows only meant
being XXX times slower - while needing more RAM than available on Mac today often means freezing the
whole OS and unability to force shut down related App - which will prevent a clean restart.

So I watch carefully my activity monitor if an App looks like starting to need exceeding RAM,
to cut it off until there is time to do that :)

If I have time, I will wait until it heals itself and restart after many, many minutes,
if not I'm forced to hit the power button 10 seconds and hope that nothing serious will happen that way.

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8 minutes ago, chaz said:

I was wondering if referencing might help, thanks for the suggestion. A lot of my files include a large facility auto cad import (2D) with a ton of classes. And then a 3d model of the facility I build. And then I start my actual design project to go inside. I'm going to try referencing the facility and 3d base model.

This is something I am doing too (large 2D cad import to be used as a basis for a 3D model), and for large 2D drawings of facilities it really helps to import those into a separate vectorworks file and then reference them into your working drawing for the 3D model.

After import of the large 2D facility dwg file you may want to check if the lines are polylines/polygons and if possible reduce the number of nodes. Polygons/polylines with lots of nodes will severely impact performance (e.g. contour lines from survey drawings if present).

Also do a purge and enable remove duplicates/overlapping objects as I have found that depending on the drawing there can be quite a few overlapping lines, getting rid of those will help too.

Edited by Art V
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One thing is, I am the keeper of a master file on a lot of my work. Other people are then referencing my master file and creating their own documents (lighting design, rigging, electrical, etc). So would it be an issue if they are referencing my master file that has references to outside files? They would need access to the file I am referencing to see rigging points, etc. in the facility.

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It should work, but nested references is something I have been avoiding for a long time as they need to be loaded sequentially and this may slow down things considerably when opening the master drawing. If this is on a network then this may further reduce the speed, but this will also depend on network speed, servers etc.

Not to mention that things may get messy to edit. I hated it in AutoCAD if nested references were used and you had to hunt down the proper dwg file to change something, at least until they allowed editing in place for xrefs. This assuming they looked beyond the first level of xrefs and included the sub-xrefs as well. Often this was not the case.

You could try with a typical file and see how well it works (or doesn't work) in your office situation.

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On 2016/9/8 at 2:15 AM, Art V said:

Would it be an option to generate the base honeycomb from a flat 2D surface with the holes as honeycomb/circle/whatever shape you want subtracted from the overall flat 2D surface shape, then extrude this to the required thickness and then morph it into shape? I've done something like that with at least 200 holes to create a honeycomb style plate though the overall shape was not that complex and the resulting file was just over 15 MB. As Kevin mentioned using a sweep can create an overly heavy geometry.

Could you perhaps show a screenshot or two  of what you are trying to create? This might be helpful for us to provide an alternative way of getting the result you want.

 

On 2016/9/8 at 5:44 AM, Alan Woodwell said:

Hi, Have you tried creating a 2d object first then extruding??
Other option is to use Marionette. Here's a network that Patrick Winkler created which creates a series of honeycomb grids. The large on on the screen when you open file took about 20sec to create so be patient and all depends on your computer.
HTH

hexagon_grid_V1.vwx.zip

Honeycomb.JPG

Here is what I finally created in small scale to present the idea first before applying the honeycomb/nest shape to the whole design. It is obvious that this kinda shape would be almost impossible to creat from extrusion of 2D surface.

20160921131949.png

I used copied individual cell and a whole extruded generic solid to form this, it turns out to be very helpful, and this is in this 25cm scale, the slowness is still acceptable, while the actual product will reach 65cm which will definitely turns to be horrible work in turtle slowness.

And have to process and design every small detail very carefully, as long as we need to change the size related to the comb cell, it drives me crazy.

Is there any hardware capable of processing such stuff or any smart way to get aroud it?

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@FRDRAY, Alan's suggestion is probably your best bet to solve your issue. Afterwards you could still make a copy and turn that into a generic solid if you want and keep the original for further editing/updating.

Just tried, and Alan's version works quickly so that should not be a problem. If Alan's version is slow on your machine as well then you may have a hardware issue.

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I did an experiment to see what happens with FRDRAY's geometry. I constructed it using Model>3D Powerpack>Revolve with Rail and then Model>3D Powerpack>Stitch and Trim Surfaces to create the base nub. I made it into a symbol before arraying it and creating the Solid Addition. Overall VW isn't too bad with all the geometry. I could fly around it in wireframe and in OpenGL set to Medium. The generic solid is a little better than the solid addition. It seems to me the biggest issue is all the pre-selection and selection animation which causes VW to hiccup. You could just turn that off while working with the file under Preferences>Interactive. I would also minimize the number of snap options you have turned on in the Snapping Palette.

Kevin

Screen Shot 2016-09-21 at 9.15.09 AM.pngScreen Shot 2016-09-21 at 9.14.22 AM.png

Interlocking_Shapes_v2016.vwx

Edited by Kevin McAllister
Add VW file
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