PDF Files imported into VW Slow Down Screen

[Grethe Connerth]

Dear VW lovers,

 

when importing multiple PDF files into VW - either onto Design Layers or Sheet Layers - then the screen slows down when I am looking at a page and resize the view itself only. 

 

It looks like VW is somewhat 'processing' the view of the PDF files and it takes a while for all PDF files to be visible when I change the page view %-percentage. And it's just time-consuming waiting and slows down my work processes a lot.

BTW - pushing the 'Escape' button on my MAC does not help.

 

My current VW settings - don't know if they have anything to do with it - are at 'Good Performance and Compatibility' in the VW Preference Settings.

 

Any thoughts are much appreciated.

 

Cheers,

Grethe

 

[markdd]

Some pdf files, especially those that have come from AutoCAD and other Vector based software actually do have the geometry within the pdf. So yes, vwx does seem to process these. It can slow things down quite a bit.

 

A neat trick is to "ungroup" the pdf. You should be able to get to the underlying geometry that way. It certainly speeds things up if all you need to get to is the geometry....

 

 

 

 

[Grethe Connerth]

Hi 

36 minutes ago, markdd said:

A neat trick is to "ungroup" the pdf. You should be able to get to the underlying geometry that way. It certainly speeds things up if all you need to get to is the geometry....

1

 

Hi Mark,

 

wow this is nifty !!!

 

I have to admit, I might have asked this question a few months ago here on this forum, and forgot about it. Ups! 

But I haven't seen this option ever before !!! So this is really interesting.

 

So the results I got where 2 layers on top of each other ( on one Design Layer ) when ungrouping the PDF file:

 

1) one bitmap, quite low res, but with all the colours and all

2) one line drawing a bit distorted, but still enough to go by

 

NICE ONE, and the waiting is gone !!!

 

Cheers,

Grethe 

 

[markdd]

Normally, I get the raw geometry along with the bitmap. I have no idea why its distorted though. Maybe someone has processed it elsewhere...

[Grethe Connerth]

That's ok though 🤣

 

Have a look, it's mainly the curved geometry.

 

- the coloured image is a screenshot of the original PDF ( not Bitmap )

- the second is the ungrouped PDF as geometry

[zoomer]

So far I always thought PDF Underlays in VW is cool.

Never noticed problems with smaller PDFs.

Also I mostly get both DWG and PDF so I mostly used DWG instead.

But now I have complex PDFs only so far.

 

As I am testing also in Bricscad,

a) In Bricscad the same PDFs were unusable because it is much slower

than VW

(At least in the Mac Version and when multi-threading is disabled, by default)

b) I realized that a PDF underlay will be recalculated for every View change.

Especially when zooming in. It still works ok for me in VW but it is very

noticeable. It shows a rough preview and then there is some lag until the PDF

gets refined for screen resolution.

C) While Bricscad hides the PDF or prevents viewport navigation during that

time which is bad)

 

 

But now to the solution,

which I would like to get also in PDF.

Just at the right time Bricscad offered "PDF Caching".

 

That means, BC will create a single Image File from the whole PDF, 5000x5000

Pixel in that case, which seems to be a sufficient resolution for my typical

Architecture Underlays and keeps it in GPU Memory.

So there is no dynamic generation anymore and therefore no lags at all !

(Of course it is an option that you can deactivate or extend in a way that you can

zoom in even closer at the expense of dynamic recalculation above the

standard resolution)

Edited July 18, 2018 by zoomer

[Kevin McAllister]

I've had issues with this slowdown in the past. Its usually with PDFs that contain snap-able linework. It can bring VW to a crawl. Sometimes I will bring the PDF into a clean file instead, work with it and then cut and paste my work back into my original file. If you don't need the snapping, turning it off in the OIP can help a bit.

 

I've also seen the distortion before too. It doesn't happen all of the time but it does happen. I think its related to the type of curve points. VW seems to have difficulty converting some curve points. This is the main reason there are so many wish list requests for being able to import Adobe Illustrator files. Notice how the internal curves of the D and the S are fine, its only the exterior boundaries that are all distorted. I don't think there's currently a way to resolve this. 

 

Kevin

 

3 hours ago, Grethe Connerth said:

 

 

 

[zoomer]

For acceleration of CAD PDFs, I normally always disable PDF snapping.

PDF Vectors are not as accurate as I would wish anyway.

I use it as an underlay sketch and use Grid Snap instead.

 

I also experience distortion in CAD PDFs and also have no clue why that

can happen at all. I just selectively scaled them like Scanned Bitmaps so far.

[Grethe Connerth]

Yes that's excactly what happens - ...  recalculating for every View change & zooming in ...

 

From what I heard is that the PDF fileI received was generated in Solidworks and then placed into Adobe Illustrator or Adobe InDesign in order to put together a presentation booklet as a PDF. Maybe those steps support the distortion.

 

Also what I had happen in the past was, that I created a file in VW for CNC routing. Here basically outlines of objects of various floor panels that interlocked into each other.

Usually, I export to DWG for production and they then take the file as RT to the router. And everything works fine.

 

With this particular project, the company that did the production/cutting of the floor panels insisted on receiving EPSF files. So I exported to EPSF.

The problem occurred on site when we noticed that by using an EPSF instead of a DWG file, all panels had shrunk by 1-2mm. Disaster for a jigsaw floor panel pattern ... 😱

 

[Kevin McAllister]

9 hours ago, Grethe Connerth said:

With this particular project, the company that did the production/cutting of the floor panels insisted on receiving EPSF files. So I exported to EPSF.

The problem occurred on site when we noticed that by using an EPSF instead of a DWG file, all panels had shrunk by 1-2mm. Disaster for a jigsaw floor panel pattern ... 😱

 

 

^ Yikes! When a supplier asks for an EPSF I have taken a DWG export from VW into Illustrator and it worked out ok. It would be no fun to discover something like that on site. I would encourage you to bug submit a real world example like that. Accuracy is important and VW isn't optimized for digital fabrication yet.

 

I'm pretty sure the distortion originates with software like VW and Solidworks and not with Illustrator. Its a difference in how the curve points are interpolated.

 

Kevin

 

[zoomer]

12 hours ago, Grethe Connerth said:

and then placed into Adobe Illustrator or Adobe InDesign in order to put together a presentation booklet as a PDF

 

You can do this directly in VW too 🙂

I often get such (nice!) illustration PDFs from landscape architects.

With lots of (too High or what ever Res) detail teaser images.

 

Apples Preview already has problems displaying midi complex 2D Plan PDFs

but these images make it totally lagging.

I still miss a proper PDF editing App but others told me that they will immediately

open and clean up such PDFs for their purposes.

 

[Grethe Connerth]

17 hours ago, Kevin McAllister said:

^ Yikes! When a supplier asks for an EPSF I have taken a DWG export from VW into Illustrator and it worked out ok. It would be no fun to discover something like that on site. I would encourage you to bug submit a real world example like that. Accuracy is important and VW isn't optimized for digital fabrication yet.

 

Well, I asked the builder to test built part of the floor in the factory prior to site, but they decided due to time constraints to have all panels cut and set up on site.

The discussions we had were endless when this happened, one can imagine

...

 

14 hours ago, zoomer said:

You can do this directly in VW too 🙂

 

 

Exactly !

And even with me having Adobe Creative Cloud and all Adobe programs within, I hardly use any of them and only use VW to put all of my presentations together.

This company that had provided the PDF files, which I am about to be working with, does not use or have VW 😱 

And even worse, uses InDesign or Illustrator I believe to create technical drawings ... 

... kill me now ... 🤣

 

 

 

[zoomer]

I know architects who, in the late 90ies, drew their whole

2D competition plans in Macromedia Freehand.

And were totally excited about it.

Today I think it is great to have all these Layout and Illustration

options beside 2D/3D CAD, Rendering and Calculations in one

App, like Vectorworks.

 

 

I think my proposed PDF Caching would be nice in VW in the future too.

I also think it would be very good to send your example to the support

to nail down the accuracy/distortion thing as well as the refresh speed

issue.

 

For now I hope you will find still ways to optimize these PDFs for VW usage.

Like creating high res bitmaps from them if these work better or editing

PDFs and delete Layer if applicable or explode it to get vector geometry

out or such things ....