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So I have lived by a dictum, but I actually do not know if it is true.  I have always worked with the assumption that gradients and transparencies were very "heavy" items.  During our BIM transitions, I have been telling people that walls are probably lighter elements that the hyper presentation layered transparency gradient hatches that we not pile on top of eachother...but I actually do not know if that is the case.

 

What are the heaviest things that are most likely to slow down your drawing and inflate your file size?  (Leave out Revit Objects - because they are the worst),

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Gradients and Transparencies are still somewhat heavy, but since they are now handled by the much faster GPU-dependant VGM, they no longer cause as much pain as they did pre-2015. 

 

The heavy/problematic objects these days that I run into most frequently:

1) Inefficient mesh objects (OBJ, 3DS and STL imports mainly) that did not have polygon count in mind when they were created in other software.

2) Unnecessarily dense 2D geometry, which often comes from DWG import. This takes the form of straight lines or simple curves that are defined by hundreds or thousands of vertices when only a handful are needed to display the original shape.

3) PDFs. A PDF of somewhat high resolution (2K+) can bring Vectorworks to a crawl, where just a simple bitmap import of the image would not. This is mostly due to the high resolution as well as the embedded vertex/snapping geometry that some PDFs contain. This is why we spent effort of the crop, resolution downsampling and snapping geometry control for PDFs.

4) Having any type of object extremely far from the document origin. Even a few 2D loci can do it. Normally this presents with symptoms of disappearing objects and failed surface/solids operations, but can also present as slow screen redraw.

 

For file SIZE the easiest way for a document to balloon is for multiple high resolution image imports or textures to be included in the document even though they aren't in use. This is pretty manageable via the Purge function however. The lack of use of symbols for repetitive geometry can also make a file much larger than it needs to be quite quickly.

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This would make a great knowledge base article.....

 

36 minutes ago, JimW said:

The heavy/problematic objects these days that I run into most frequently:

1) Inefficient mesh objects (OBJ, 3DS and STL imports mainly) that did not have polygon count in mind when they were created in other software.

 

From within VW I would add multiple extrudes (ones with simple geometry are ok) and sweeps if the segment angle is quite high.

 

36 minutes ago, JimW said:

2) Unnecessarily dense 2D geometry, which often comes from DWG import. This takes the form of straight lines or simple curves that are defined by hundreds or thousands of vertices when only a handful are needed to display the original shape.

 

Ties into the wish for an effective Simplify Poly command. Even VW sometimes creates these type of shapes when adding/subtracting surfaces or using the Extract tool.

 

36 minutes ago, JimW said:

3) PDFs. A PDF of somewhat high resolution (2K+) can bring Vectorworks to a crawl, where just a simple bitmap import of the image would not. This is mostly due to the high resolution as well as the embedded vertex/snapping geometry that some PDFs contain. This is why we spent effort of the crop, resolution downsampling and snapping geometry control for PDFs.

4) Having any type of object extremely far from the document origin. Even a few 2D loci can do it. Normally this presents with symptoms of disappearing objects and failed surface/solids operations, but can also present as slow screen redraw.

 

For file SIZE the easiest way for a document to balloon is for multiple high resolution image imports or textures to be included in the document even though they aren't in use. This is pretty manageable via the Purge function however. The lack of use of symbols for repetitive geometry can also make a file much larger than it needs to be quite quickly.

 

 

Kevin

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This is a good topic ....  so I'm keeping it current ....  

Jim: by your response about pdf file cropping you seem to imply that cropping a pdf image will make the whole file less "heavy" ,,, that is, it will draw, scroll  and zoom faster.  Is that true ?

 

That also implies I should also import images as bitmaps or jpeg files (not pdf) , unless I'm trying to snap to points as can be done with a pdf.  True ?

 

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36 minutes ago, domer1322 said:

This is a good topic ....  so I'm keeping it current ....  

Jim: by your response about pdf file cropping you seem to imply that cropping a pdf image will make the whole file less "heavy" ,,, that is, it will draw, scroll  and zoom faster.  Is that true ?

 

That also implies I should also import images as bitmaps or jpeg files (not pdf) , unless I'm trying to snap to points as can be done with a pdf.  True ?

 

 

Cropping a PDF significantly (not just shaving a little from the edges) can increase document speed yes, especially if you're cropping off or fully diasabling snapping geometry. It can affect filesize a bit too but only slightly. Images on the other hand have an option for "Delete Outside Crop" once you've cropped then that more directly reduces filesize especially if youve heavily cropped large images.

 

Generally yes, if you don't need snapping then image import is a bit faster and image cropping allows for you to remove portions of the original image completely to keep size down as noted above.

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