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to renew or not to renew (that is the question)


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We work on PCs.  Now I suppose based on your question that our file sizes may be relatively small.  Our 4 storey 40 +/- residential buildings with underground parking come

in at 600,000 KB.  Our plans make use of 3D viewports and renders.1941611055_ScreenHunter_33Jan_0709_59.thumb.jpg.affa818fa4c74d77466661cc001dc475.jpg

Edited by Markvl
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Same here but our projects are smaller with files sizes typically 80,000 kb to 150,000 kb. A rendered vp similar to your drawing would take 4 to 6 minutes to render and update in medium detail in final quality renderworks with foreground hidden line with a sheet layer dpi 900. Frequently 'not responding' would appear and the quite often a crash.

 

This is on a high spec pc.

 

Nice drawing by the way.

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Wow 900 dpi!  That is very high.  The above image on an A2 sheet we typically don't go any higher than 400 dpi.  900 dpi definitely accounts for high render times.  Do you have a reason for going to 900 dpi.  Perhaps a screen pick of your work would help me to understand.  I have done some Renders at 600 dpi because for one reason or another fine line detail was needed.  Thanks for the compliment.

 

One other thing that came to mind is high polygonal models/symbols could contribute to long wait times and crashing.  I have found it only takes one bad apple to wreck render times with crashing.  Good clean models/symbols is essential.

Edited by Markvl
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
13 minutes ago, michael john williams said:

final quality renderworks with foreground hidden line with a sheet layer dpi 900

 

900 DPI seems a bit high. Have you experimented printing out lower resolutions to see if there's a noticeable difference?

Also, I would recommend experimenting with render settings using Custom Renderworks. You should be able to get away with lowering certain settings with no noticeable loss in quality but have a noticeable difference in render speed.

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12 minutes ago, Markvl said:

One other thing that came to mind is high polygonal models/symbols could contribute to long wait times and crashing.  I have found it only takes one bad apple to wreck render times with crashing.  Good clean models/symbols is essential.

 

Unfortunately this effectively means you just can't use the vast majority of third party product models, because they are rarely provided in VW format and conversion from other formats invariably results in horribly overcomplex polygon meshes.

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30 minutes ago, line-weight said:

 

Unfortunately this effectively means you just can't use the vast majority of third party product models, because they are rarely provided in VW format and conversion from other formats invariably results in horribly overcomplex polygon meshes.

Actually, you can use this:

http://app-help.vectorworks.net/2019/eng/index.htm#t=VW2019_Guide%2FObjects_edit2%2FSimplifying_Mesh_Objects.htm

 

I learned long ago that before you say you can’t do something in Vectorworks, it’s always best to ask how you can do it.

 

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22 minutes ago, Neil Barman said:

Actually, you can use this:

http://app-help.vectorworks.net/2019/eng/index.htm#t=VW2019_Guide%2FObjects_edit2%2FSimplifying_Mesh_Objects.htm

 

I learned long ago that before you say you can’t do something in Vectorworks, it’s always best to ask how you can do it.

 

 

Ok. I'd ask about the practicability of applying this to every downloaded object, assuming that it gives the desired results. For me a real world impact of imported mesh objects is that they make the push-pull tool unusable. See the thread linked to below. I just went back to that file to look at the 'problem' object in that particular instance. I thought it would be interesting to see if the 'simplify mesh' command would improve the object such that I'm able to use a basic VW tool with the object in the background.

 

But if I look at that particular object, (try for yourself) it's a group of 28 3D symbols. Each of which has a 3d component formed from a mesh object. So, I would have to click into 28 different symbols and their 3d components to apply a simplify mesh command. Even if I did do that, would it have a beneficial effect? I'm afraid I don't have the time to find out even on an experimental basis. This clearly isn't a realistic solution - to expect users to have to do this kind of repair job on imported BIM objects.

 

The solution is for VW to sort out whatever the fundamental problem is here (and I would say that an imported BIM object causing beachballing and tool malfunctions is a stability issue). A problem which has been known about for at least a year. And which has not been resolved in VW2019. Despite the claims of 'drastic improvements in stability' in that promotional email I received.

 

 

 

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On 1/7/2019 at 7:52 AM, line-weight said:

Ok. I'd ask about the practicability of applying this to every downloaded object, assuming that it gives the desired results...

Thinking of practicability and wanting detailed 3D objects in your files, it seems to me that you have two options: Build them yourself, or import them from other sources. As much as I enjoy 3D modelling, sometimes I do opt to import them from other sources. In that case, I appreciate that someone else put the time into modelling (or perhaps over-modelling) the object and it may be up to me to simplify the polygon count to suit my needs if need be. 

 

About the file you referred to in that other thread, it appears to contain an actual BIMobject of a specific manufacturer's product. (My understanding that is that such objects will often be exported from a manufacturer's own design files and will therefore have more detail than I would even know about.) I'm not actually having any issues with the object & file as-is in VW2019, so I wouldn't necessarily be prompted to simplify it. But if it was important to me to use that particular, very detailed object in my file (and if I did find it to have too many polygons) then I would expect that I would need to use the Simplify Mesh as necessary to clean it up. I would also be grateful that I didn't have to model the entire object myself from scratch.

 

However, are you wishing that Vectorworks would "auto-simplify" all imported objects (and sub-objects) to a particular point, without any consultation/interaction with the user?

 

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@Neil Barman What I'm wishing for is just for things to at least work as they are claimed to in the information that is presented to people when they decide to buy the software.

 

It's been established that the push-pull tool seems to malfunction when there is a complex symbol present. It was submitted as a bug more than a year ago.

 

I'm wishing that that bug would have been fixed by now.

 

One of VW2017's selling points when it was released was the inclusion of the BIMobject app, where we were promised the ability to download content in a form that we could easily make use of in VW. To quote from marketing blurb at the time:

 

The new BIMobject App for Vectorworks is unique in that it manages and downloads not just Vectorworks-native content but also transparently converts DWG, SKP (SketchUp), and 3DS content in the BIMobject Cloud into information-rich Vectorworks content. This process is handled quietly in the background and the type of content the user is downloading does not change the user experience (UX).

 

I'm wishing that that was actually true, and that downloading objects from that source didn't lead me to a situation where application functions don't work, unless I go through laborious steps to try and simplify geometry manually.

 

Of course, I can't say where the basic problem lies: in overcomplexity of the imported object, or in the way the push-pull tool works. Because I don't make Vectorworks. I just pay for it. I also like others spend a fair bit of my own time in this forum providing examples of things that don't work and making suggestions for improvements, and then watch many of these problems persist through many subsequent releases.

 

Does it sound like I'm being a bit narky? Yeah I am. In the context of what this thread is about. It's not aimed personally at you or any other individual at VW, it's just me expressing a little of the constant frustration I experience in getting work done each day. I am wishing that it wasn't like that.

 

 

 

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