File Size!! Archicad 10

[Anonymous]

We are in the process of working on Construction Documents for one of our projects which is still in 10. (We have not converted it to 11 and don't plan on it because of the percentage complete we are at right now.)

The project is a 70k+ 14 plex movie theatre and the file size is currently 239 megs. It is extemely time consuming to send and received as well as saving. Moving around in the file is also slow and cumbersome. We model to good level of detail. We did some tests to try and figure out why the file is so large, and we figured out that if we delete all of the layouts the file becomes 70megs and if we leave the layouts and delete the view sets the file is 228 megs. So it appears that the layouts are taking up a huge amount of space.

So I am wondering if we are linking the viewsets in an incorrect way or if there is just so much information being linked that it becomes huge.

Any assistance with this would be helpful. We are on the latest version of Archicad 10 using Mac 10.4.10 on both Intel and PowerPC's. Right now the file is a pln but it is shared often used as a plp.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Hi,

1.
Do you have large pictures (Jpeg, Tiff,...) placed in your layouts?
Do you have dotted fills or percentage fills used in the project?
Is shadow calculation active? If so, how do you represent shadows : with vectorial hatching f.e. lines 45° or different...?
...

2.
While dealing with large projects, maybe you can split into two different files to speed up the project:
- one .pln file with the 3D model and the different views (teamworked)
- another .pln file for construction documentation (layouts, logo, pictures, ...) as you did with plotmaker (before AC10)

[Thomas Holm]

I agree to Joeri's suggestions. I'd like to add that PDFs containing scanned images or picture files may also contribute to size - as well as complex company logos.

If possible, use solid fills with grey pens instead of vector fills (dotted lines & patterns). For large projects, composite walls may also add to the bulk, solid fills will help there too. The reason complex fills these take up more space in layouts than in the model is that they're stored in a more print-ready format there. Every dot counts. Solid fills are just treated as colored regions, no pixels.

The model is always rebuilt from the project database when you look at it in the floor plan. If you have say 1000 similar seats, they are just stored as 1000 placement pointers to the library, which is not in the pln file.

[Link]

Don't forget the obvious. Make sure you have Compress File checked in your Save Options. Also storing the drawing files inside the project will bloat your file, although it is usually better to do this.

Cheers,
Link.

[Ignacio Azpiazu]

I am inferring that model and layouts are all in a single file --for a project that size it might make sense to break it up into model and 'layout book', which will not only reduce file size and Teamwork send-receives, but may also avoid some of the need for Teamwork in the first place (you can have one person working in the model and one in layouts updating without any need for Teamwork).

[Anonymous]

An empty layout take alot of space, we have project where I try to add empty layouts and every layout took about 500kb!!!
Same layout with alot of things on took about 550kb.. So, there is something wrong in Graphisofts layout routines. An empty layout shouldn't take more than a few bytes.

But if I have an empty project and add empty layouts it took about 4 kb / layout.

[Ralph Wessel]

RobOberle wrote:
We did some tests to try and figure out why the file is so large, and we figured out that if we delete all of the layouts the file becomes 70megs and if we leave the layouts and delete the view sets the file is 228 megs. So it appears that the layouts are taking up a huge amount of space.

A 'View' is really only a collection of settings that define a way of looking at the model, e.g. drawings, scale, layer combos etc. Therefore, they don't take up a lot of space and deleting them doesn't delete the content they point to.

I'd suggest looking at the sections and elevations first. Project size can easily increase by at least 4 times by adding elevations to layouts in my experience. I had one project which doubled in size by adding a single section which cut through the entire model. If you want to see the effect they have, delete all sections/elevations in the floor plans and rebuild all your layouts.