Importing AutoCAD file to VW = Huge!

[ojardnas]

imported a 9.9MB AutoCAD file into VW2016 on a Mac. the new VW file is 63.1MB.

Why?

And, VW bogs down with a 63.1MB file...

[michaelk]

It's probably not the size.  Most of my drawings are over 500 MB and they don't bog down.

 

There might be some non VW friendly objects in the drawing.  Are there mesh objects?  Or millions and millions of tiny tiny lines?

 

VW also stores resources in the main drawing rather than in files in the same folder.  So that might be some of it.

 

 

hth

[Art V]

On average an imported dwg files is 5-10 times larger in Vectorworks than the original dwg file, though it depends on contents of the dwg file. So your increase in file size is normal.

 

As @michaelk mentioned the file size is not really the issue, you may want to check the content of your drawing.

 

Two things you could try on a copy of your file:

- Purge everything you don't need

- When using purge also turn on the option to delete overlapping duplicates (overkill command in AutoCAD) as this can considerably reduce the number of objects.

 

Something else to check for is whether there are lots of polylines with lots of nodes, you can have those if you have elevation contours (survey file) in your drawing. Sometimes things like circles and ellipsoids can actually be polygons with lots of nodes. Polylines/polygons with lots of nodes will tend to bog down Vectorworks display updates. If possible try to clean up the polylines by reducing the number of nodes.

[michaelk]

On 11/15/2016 at 10:45 AM, Art V said:

Something else to check for is whether there are lots of polylines with lots of nodes, you can have those if you have elevation contours (survey file) in your drawing. Sometimes things like circles and ellipsoids can actually be polygons with lots of nodes. Polylines/polygons with lots of nodes will tend to bog down Vectorworks display updates. If possible try to clean up the polylines by reducing the number of nodes.

 

Or rather than a circle being a polygon with 10000 vertices, it's 10000 line objects whose endpoints almost meet.

 

 

mk