topic Libraries and Polygons in Libraries & objects

Libraries and Polygons

Patrick M — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 04:11:08 GMT

Digging through the "prokit", stumbled across this gem. Its a ±1,000 poly wine glass. Maybe you need 6-8 for a place setting in a rendered view for a client presentation. this sounds great. maybe you are working on a restaurant project, and you need 200 of these (yeah, there are better solutions), so now you find yourself with 200,000 polygons in wine glasses.

So I'm not posting to dig on this object, but more to open a discussion on what your thresholds are for polygon management... and maybe to ask again "why is the polycount add-on a goodie, as an afterthought, and not integral to the software?".

For me, I try to enforce these rules for all library parts/objects in archicad:

-no object placed in a single instance should be over 15-20,000 polygons. For things like feature chandeliers or focal point furniture pieces.

-no object placed 10-20x should be over 5,000 polgyons. Looking at dining chairs, plumbing fixtures, etc.

-no element placed 20+ times should be over 1,000 polygons

-not all polygons are equal. 75,000 polygons in meshes or morphs will slow a file down more than 750,000 polygons in objects (IME)

-files running on top shelf computers (128GB RAM, best graphics cards, etc.) should never exceed 8,000,000 polygons. We have files pushing 12,000,000 with all visible, but they are SLOW

-the embedded library should never be over 350MB. A project server library should be created if the library can't be pared down.

-no single image in the embedded library should be over 3MB

-no single object in the embedded library should be over 10MB

-if your duplicates/missing warnings hits triple digits, the project halts until its fixed (avoid any missing duplicates, obviously)

...

so ... what are your guidelines/standards/limits/breaking points?

Operating system used: Mac Apple Silicon

Re: Libraries and Polygons

Claudiu Serban — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 08:34:23 GMT

Sorry that I don’t have an OT answer, but I just wanted to add that I recently, after ~25 years of archicad use, discovered that using the embedded library is not good. I am in the process of migrating all of my custom textures and objects into lcfs. You get these benefits:

- PLN file size reduction and the added benefits of faster file saves and opens, not to mention they get duplicated if used in hotlinks (that’s another mess best avoided)

- easily find any object (I sometimes “fish” for that one project where I needed that something and I created it there)

- easily update an object in all projects if you ever need to (I update old objects more often now, with the help of claude).

I never cared about polycount. I load the project with as much detail as I need. If it goes stuttery, I just hide those layers while working.

Re: Libraries and Polygons

Funfun Yan — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 08:35:48 GMT

Thank you for the reminder, and for your very helpful and pertinent advice.