Railing Complexity Bloating File (PolyCount 2.000.000)

[mhmorgado]

Hi guys,

First of all, I have been reading the posts on this blog for a long time and I thank you all for the many times you have helped. Most of the times I haven't participated due to redundancy, but this time I feel compelled to adress this issue as I struggle to clean up my ArchiCAD files.

I have used polycount on my project and it is scoring an impressive 3.5 million polygons in total. However, most of those come from a relatively simple object (morphologically) which is creating an astounding ammount of polygons: 2.5 million of the whole project.
What I mean by "simple" is that I believe this object CAN (must) be simplified, not that my model is simple, of course.

The object (a multi-deck pedestrian pathway and cyclable bridge) is composed of complex profiles applied to railing objects: that is true regarding the railing itself as well the wooden cladding boards which cover the structure. The glazed pannels were also modelled resorting to this technique, which might have been one of the workaround responsible for the project bloating, I guess. - Any ideas on this particularly would be a bonus, but a side quest still, since the glazing score was actually quite low (30k polygons...)

The core of the structure was accomplished resorting to slabs , ramp objects and collumns. You will notice that score also to be high, that is due mainly to the curved railings, which include the structure itself. (curved ramp) - so this component of the structure includes the wooden cladding (1 million polygons of it across only 8 ramps (125k polygons EACH ).

As attachment, PolygonScore_Project illustrates the polygon score within the full project model context; PolygonScore_BridgeandPathways does the same but regarding to the Hotlinked Module File which only contains the geometry of the composite object (the whole bridge and adjacent pathways).

Polygon Scores:

Bicycle Path: 223k
Wooden Cladding: 168k
Railings: 693k
Glazing: 31k
Structure + Curved Ramps with wooden cladding: 1.18m

Bridge and Pathways SubTotal: 2m 158k
Project Total: 3.5 million:

So... I would like to bring this model to a workable state (around 2million max polygons in my machine - I guess). What do you guys think I am doing wrong? I tried to search the web and ArchiCAD-Talk forums about complex railing profiles, polygon count issues, etc. to no avail.

I hope the annexed files help you to understand more clearly the design and possibles issues.

Thank you in advance for all the time spent on this issue. I hope it will help others struggling with complex profile and railing modelling. Cheers all for your always helpful insights.




P.S.: Wasn't really quite sure if the actual railings of the project could be simplified, and was unsure about which characterictics to prtscrn... If you have any ideas regarding that, they will be very much appreciated.

[mhmorgado]

SImplifying the rail's helix into line segments ended up being the only method I managed to apply correctly. That brought the PolyCount down by 1.000.000 polygons. Converting to morph and try to simplify its geometry didn't work out for me because none of the morph edit tools had any effect. However, I confess I am not very skilled using the morph tool so I might have overlooked some functionality.

Anyway, thank you for the help so far. The overall cleanup brought my project down by 1.5million polygons so now, at 2 million on the overall project I can work (somewhat) smoothly again. Probably it's time to get a better machine. Cheers