Shore Regional Posted September 8, 2009 Posted September 8, 2009 Hi, I'm currently a student at Shore Regional High School, which is in New Jersey. I'm using AutoCAD 2009, and have been building (since freshman year) a to-scale model of Yankee Stadium, in 3D, in cad. Ever since freshman year, I've been having to do everything in multiple files (i.e: H Drive--> Students --> Yankee Stadium--> Concession stands, seats, windows, cross-section, dimensioned section, etc etc etc). Right now, I'm about done with the entire front of the stadium, but my file is incredibly large. My hope, at least, was to be able to fit all parts in to one large drawing and align/position them accordingly. Unfortunately, some of the drawings are too large to work at all-- even in just individual parts. The "front" which consists of 7 sections, the outside decor, (but is still without seats, guard rails, advertisements, and concession stands) is currently 67,445 KB. It takes a good 5 minutes to open, and I need to save after every minor detail and wait. So, my question is simple. How do you go about shrinking the file-size? I've already gone in and made it all in one layer, I've tried various different methods from other threads on this website (purge, explode, etc.)-- one's that I've searched thoroughly for (and believe me, I spent an entire class period last week searching for an answer). I'm not even 18 yet, but I want my future to be with this program. I've completed internships away from home, and I've "mastered" the program as best as a kid can do. Any help is truthfuly appreciated, and I hope you take me seriously. I look foreward to posting more frequently, and learning all I can about AutoCAD. Quote
ReMark Posted September 8, 2009 Posted September 8, 2009 I would have suggested putting things on multiple layers, turning layers on/off, as you worked on them would, in my opinion, have made more sense. I also would have suggested breaking the project up into more sections only to keep file size from becoming bloated (as you have already encountered). What are the specs for the computer you're using? Quote
Shore Regional Posted September 8, 2009 Author Posted September 8, 2009 Unfortunately it's a school computer, so the administrator has blocked "my computer" from being viewed by a student-- but I can get you that answer tomorrow. When I encountered this problem in sophmore year, I got the specs and showed my dad. According to my dad, who works with computers (not Autocad), the computer's specs are as good if not better than that of a personal computer. Should something be that massive? I added it up, and if I did in fact put them all on a document, it would be over 300,000 KB. Is that just too big to even think about making a change, or reducting the file size? Quote
ReMark Posted September 8, 2009 Posted September 8, 2009 The largest 3D drawing I've pushed around using 2009 was 38MBs. But I have a fairly high-end graphics card. Maybe that's where the bottleneck is being experienced. Any tweaks you do will have to be limited to the drawing. Since your using a school computer (networked?) I doubt you'll be given permission to do anything as far as hardware tweaks. Have you looked at Performance Tuning via the 3DCONFIG command? Explode does not help in reducing file size. It has the exact opposite affect. Quote
chelsea1307 Posted September 8, 2009 Posted September 8, 2009 how are you bringing the files together? Quote
Shore Regional Posted September 8, 2009 Author Posted September 8, 2009 The largest 3D drawing I've pushed around using 2009 was 38MBs. But I have a fairly high-end graphics card. Maybe that's where the bottleneck is being experienced. Any tweaks you do will have to be limited to the drawing. Since your using a school computer (networked?) I doubt you'll be given permission to do anything as far as hardware tweaks. Have you looked at Performance Tuning via the 3DCONFIG command? Explode does not help in reducing file size. It has the exact opposite affect. Since I'm a relative "new" CAD user, going on 3 years now, would you tell me how to go about doing something like that? Would there be anything to touch/change in order to reduce the file size? A different note, all of my parts are seprate-- as in I don't have anything uion'ed. Would making the hundreds of other objects one whole object reduce the file size at all? Quote
Shore Regional Posted September 8, 2009 Author Posted September 8, 2009 how are you bringing the files together? That's completely over my head, right now. If I have the capability to, I was just going to simply copy->paste into a larger document, but it's becoming more and more apparent that my computer simply won't allow that. Also, I read somewhere that converting the solid's to breps might reduce the file size? Is that just another myth floating around google-answers? I tried so, and it *increased* the file by 23KB... Quote
Shore Regional Posted September 8, 2009 Author Posted September 8, 2009 And thank you all for your reply's, it is extremely appreciated. Quote
chelsea1307 Posted September 8, 2009 Posted September 8, 2009 well when you get to the point of bringing them together i would suggest you take a look at XREFfing it will help keep the final file sixe smaller then by copying and pasting, as for now I dont have alot of suggestions other then audit and purge which you said didnt help a whole lot Quote
ReMark Posted September 8, 2009 Posted September 8, 2009 Performance Tuning does not reduce file size. It has to do more with getting the best posssible performance out of your graphics card. Your dad thought the computer specs were pretty good but given all the problems your having working with the drawing files that may not be the case. Do you have a student version of AutoCAD on your home computer? Quote
Shore Regional Posted September 8, 2009 Author Posted September 8, 2009 well when you get to the point of bringing them together i would suggest you take a look at XREFfing it will help keep the final file sixe smaller then by copying and pasting, as for now I dont have alot of suggestions other then audit and purge which you said didnt help a whole lot Thanks. My final project looks very much in doubt now, however, seeing as how I can barely even fit the front of the stadium there. Quote
Shore Regional Posted September 8, 2009 Author Posted September 8, 2009 Performance Tuning does not reduce file size. It has to do more with getting the best posssible performance out of your graphics card. Your dad thought the computer specs were pretty good but given all the problems your having working with the drawing files that may not be the case. Do you have a student version of AutoCAD on your home computer? So do you have a brief description of how I go about figiting with the Preformance Tuning? And no, I don't have CAD at home. While it would help greatly, I don't have the money to drop on the program. Quote
Tiger Posted September 9, 2009 Posted September 9, 2009 So do you have a brief description of how I go about figiting with the Preformance Tuning? And no, I don't have CAD at home. While it would help greatly, I don't have the money to drop on the program. If (and you are from your posts) you are a registered student on your school, you can get an educational version of AutoCAD on your home computer. Check the Autodesk website for more info - and/or read This Info from CadTutor. Also, I have changed your thread-title - please use more descriptive titles in the future. And I have moved the thread to the 3D-section, you might get even more ideas on what to do here. Quote
ReMark Posted September 9, 2009 Posted September 9, 2009 One feature of Performance Tuning is the ability to check for the latest drivers for one's graphics card. However, since it is a college computer you are working on even if a new driver is available you have no ability to install it. Performance Tuning can also be set to take advantage of hardware acceleration. As Tiger mentioned, you qualify for free software. The question then is what are the specs of your home computer? Quote
dumfatnhappy Posted September 9, 2009 Posted September 9, 2009 what we do here is break the model into 'parts' and abuse the xref command.... just keep what you don't need at the moment unloaded. Quote
Shore Regional Posted September 9, 2009 Author Posted September 9, 2009 I'm still a senior in high-school. Is there a way to get it if I am a high-school student? I have asked my teacher and he is oblivious as to what I can do (I know more on the program than he does) Quote
Shore Regional Posted September 9, 2009 Author Posted September 9, 2009 what we do here is break the model into 'parts' and abuse the xref command.... just keep what you don't need at the moment unloaded. Because I'm new at the program, would you give me a brief description of what "xref" does, and how to utilize (and abuse) such a command? Quote
ReMark Posted September 9, 2009 Posted September 9, 2009 How do get the program? Start by clicking on the link Tiger gave you in one of the above posts. Quote
ReMark Posted September 9, 2009 Posted September 9, 2009 An Xref is an external reference. Xrefs don't become a part of the drawing's database. They load along with the current drawing file at startup time. The advantage is this keeps the drawing file size to a minimum. Consult your AutoCAD Help file for further details or purchase a good third-party AutoCAD book. Quote
Patrick Hughes Posted September 9, 2009 Posted September 9, 2009 I'll chime in, exploding blocks is not what you want to do, that is if the block is used in multiple places. When you copy/paste stuff from another drawing AutoCAD creates blocks that might better serve you being exploded if you need to make some changes - but again if used in multiple places they would conserve space left unexploded. One trick regarding blocks is if one is very complex you could save it to file (so you retain the elements) and in the drawing redefine it to a much simpler form. When you then need it to show the details you again redefine it to the more complex block. I personally believe that polylines are also memory hogs and consume time upon openening. i have no empirical evidence of this but make the judgement based on observations made long ago. I (some) polylines offer no benefit to you in the drawing maybe look into usins simple linework instead Quote
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