PDF Purgatory

[PB]

We are now on Archicad 29 and PDF creation is as painful as ever !

What is the point of having image textures (which are great for bringing the project to life on screen) when PDF output is so problematic? Currently trying to publish drawing sets and complete BIMx sets and every time the publication process hangs as soon as it reaches the first sheet of sections/elevations. We can, painstakingly, publish them one sheet at a time. However, every attempt to publish a set hangs (spinning beach ball). Perhaps it would eventually publish if left to run for a sufficiently long spell but that ties up the workstation.

I'm not sufficiently technically knowledgeable to know why Archicad PDFs are so large, cumbersome, & problematic, but its driving us insane...and its hardly a new problem. (layers & project info deselected, images & curves limited to 150dpi. Lossless images compression)

...A3 sheet with 4 sections of a small project hangs publication. Published individually it gives a 26MB file that both Preview and Nitro PDF Pro struggle to open.

Are we missing something? Doesn't everyone come across this problem? And, why on earth hasn't it been resolved yet?

Any advice that might help, please?

Edit:

Graphisoft: Please add the option to publish "flattened" PDF files to a user defined resolution. Would this not resolve a large part of the problem, and let us benefit properly from the "surfaces" in Archicad?

[PB]

To rant further: Attempts to output in jpeg, tiff, or png format reduces the size of the output into an area surrounded by about 2cm-3cm of empty border, making the drawings out of scale and unusable. No idea where the setting is to remedy this - if there is one - but, at 8pm, I've had enough for today...

Any help most welcome !

[Lingwisyer]

Here are some existing wishes

https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Wishlist/Publish-Layouts-Settings-Flat-PDF-setting-dpi-of-image-...

https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Wishlist/Ability-to-Publish-PDF-with-quot-Print-as-Image-quot-Op...

There used to be some substantially older wishes, but they have either been buried or been a victim of The Great Purge...

Ling.

[Scott Boyd Turner]

Change image compression from lossless will make for much smaller files.

Settings I use below:

[Aaron Bourgoin]

I don't want to take the heat off of Graphisoft on this one, but I can't help but feel that Adobe truly has a lock on the PDF file format as it relates to vector graphics. I say this as I recall searching for a PDF reader tool that would let the firm give up their Adobe licenses. Nothing we looked at could audit a vector-filled file and clean it up.

The driver GS uses has not changed and to this day I still see issues with files I send - graphics notwithstanding, the files throw permissions errors that can't be "set" using the dirver GS licenses.

PDF is now a 35+ year old format. Yeesh, I feel old.

[PB]

Thank you Scott.

We had tried compressing images a year or two ago and the result was that the surfaces became repeating patterns of unrecognisable psychedelic art. Just tried it again: Pdf size reduced from 35MB to 33MB, and still very time consuming to open - and totally useless to send to our clients. I'm still waiting for it to open in Preview (on Mac): I'll update to let you know if image readability is compromised, although the very modest file size reduction means it remains a severe bottleneck.

Edit: "Imagery" has not been corrupted, but sadly the core issue is unresolved.

(for info: we are only using surfaces supplied by Graphisoft)

[PB]

Someone with much greater expertise will need to clarify on the technical & commercial aspects of PDF, but our work-around is to open the file in Pixelmator Pro (Mac) and export as a flattened PDF. Full resolution, no image size reduction and the file size drops from 36MB to less than 10MB and opens instantly in Preview. Crucially, it is useable for our clients. The process does take over an hour to open the original AC PDF in Pixelmator...and then seconds to export as a useable, reasonably sized PDF. One does not need to be a maths genius to work out how costly this process is !!!

Computer left to run overnight to publish a small project: PDF plans & views from 3D window generate in seconds, 6 A3 sheets of elevations & sections take all night. 1 sheet elevations & 2 sheets sections in glorious colour (!), existing & proposed = 1 day lost.

A1 presentation sheets.......don't hold your breath...

[Lingwisyer]

AC views need to be able to cull non-visible elements. I feel like that would drastically improve PDF load times. You open a PDF in Acrobat, delete a fill, and find a million lines underneath it from other elements...

[PB]

Graphisoft UK (who provide excellent support) have confirmed that it is a problem with the generation of PDF files within Archicad:

"The symptoms point to Archicad’s section/elevation output (especially textures/fills) creating extremely heavy PDFs and BIMx-with-layouts, rather than a problem within the Publisher setup itself. 
 
When publishing, Archicad must fully regenerate the model data behind each section/elevation; if these views contain texture fills, dense vector hatches, or complex SEO‑modified geometry, the resulting PDF can become very large and slow to generate or open. A 26 MB A3 sheet with four sections is consistent with known issues where elevations/sections with “Surface – Texture Fill, Shaded” or heavy symbolic fills produce huge, sluggish PDFs even on small projects. 
 
BIMx sets that include layouts re‑use the same view content, so any “heavy” sections/elevations that hurt PDF publishing will likewise slow or stall BIMx with layouts, while BIMx 3D‑only sets remain relatively unaffected."

Conclusion: Whilst the Archicad project can be modelled with image based 'surfaces' ('textures' in any other software), it cannot realistically be exported as PDF documents without a very heavy penalty in time and again in post publication processing.

Who can we contact at Graphisoft HQ to get this resolved? Surely, we are not the only ones hitting a brick wall with this?

[Eduardo Rolon]

I do the same trick but use the now free Affinity Studio.