Poly count: 49,636

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I've created a railway track, using custom profiles (beams) but now my ArchiCAD file seems to be very slow. I find that I have to open things gradually in layers in the 3D window just to view them. As you can see from the attachment, the beams are taking up most of the count as I have also inserted sleepers to make the rail track more realistic.

The 'Objects' are 4 Cadimage railings which are around 7metres long... perhaps I should replace them with ArchiCAD parts instead?

The plans open just fine, sections are slow and the 'wait time' in 3D goes up to 166 minutes. I try to stop the 3D process but ArchiCAD crashed.

Is this poly count way to large? How can I 'fix' the problem?

Thank You

[Ralph Wessel]

NStocks wrote:
I've created a railway track, using custom profiles (beams) but now my ArchiCAD file seems to be very slow. I find that I have to open things gradually in layers in the 3D window just to view them. As you can see from the attachment, the beams are taking up most of the count as I have also inserted sleepers to make the rail track more realistic.

Try creating the rails using profiled objects created with OBJECTiVE. The objects are generally lightweight in 3D, and you can control the faceting of curved sections to minimise the polygon count (use the Faceting setting).

[Anonymous]

Ralph wrote:

NStocks wrote:
I've created a railway track, using custom profiles (beams) but now my ArchiCAD file seems to be very slow. I find that I have to open things gradually in layers in the 3D window just to view them. As you can see from the attachment, the beams are taking up most of the count as I have also inserted sleepers to make the rail track more realistic.

Try creating the rails using profiled objects created with OBJECTiVE. The objects are generally lightweight in 3D, and you can control the faceting of curved sections to minimise the polygon count (use the Faceting setting).

Funnily enough I use objective in the first place, but I wasn't able to do something with it. Can't remember what it was, maybe bend in on plan or make all the rail track join together. The latter sounds more like my issues, so naturally for this reason I chose the beam and complex profile route as they join together perfectly..

Attached is the floor plan. The black lines are actually the sleepers (there are literally hundreds!)

If there is a (quick) solution to allow me to join objective piece in the same fashion of beams, could I keep the existing dimensions and direction of the track as the sleepers have taken me literally hours to complete.

Thank You

[Anonymous]

Just tried it with objective and it was indeed the fact that I couldn't 'join' the pieces together like I could with beams. Also the curves are harder to align correctly. The magic wand doesn't work with objective does it ? Or is there another way i.e using the polyline as the main frame outline, then 'place' the Objective profile on that?

[Ralph Wessel]

NStocks wrote:
Just tried it with objective and it was indeed the fact that I couldn't 'join' the pieces together like I could with beams. Also the curves are harder to align correctly. The magic wand doesn't work with objective does it ? Or is there another way i.e using the polyline as the main frame outline, then 'place' the Objective profile on that?

No, you can't 'magic wand' OBJECTiVE parts to polyline (but it's on the wish list ).

Refer to the attached image for a process to map the profile to a polyline:

• 1. Draw the required profile and make a new profiled object with OBJECTiVE > Component > New Profile. Set the profile anchor somewhere along the centreline, e.g. centre-bottom.
  
  2. Draw a polyline along the centre of the required path, e.g. with ArchiCAD's polyline tool
  
  3. Then start placing the profile with the OBJECTiVE tool. Set the Geometry Method to Rotated Diagonal and draw from the start to end of each arc in the polyline.
  
  4. You should then have a series of straight segments along the polyline.
  
  5. Then use OBJECTiVE > Tools > Bend to bend the segments to the curve.
  
  6. The finished result in 2D
  
  7. The result in 3D, showing where 2 segments join. You will see a line where the segments meet, but I expect you'd see a line there on real tracks too.

[David Maudlin]

NStocks wrote:
I've created a railway track, using custom profiles (beams) but now my ArchiCAD file seems to be very slow.
...
Is this poly count way to large? How can I 'fix' the problem?

Another approach is to simplify the Custom Profile: eliminate curves and faces, consider how detailed/realistic the profile needs to be given the viewing distances. If some pieces are seen close up, then make only those more detailed. Apply this approach to both the rails and sleepers.

David

[Anonymous]

David wrote:

NStocks wrote:
I've created a railway track, using custom profiles (beams) but now my ArchiCAD file seems to be very slow.
...
Is this poly count way to large? How can I 'fix' the problem?

Another approach is to simplify the Custom Profile: eliminate curves and faces, consider how detailed/realistic the profile needs to be given the viewing distances. If some pieces are seen close up, then make only those more detailed. Apply this approach to both the rails and sleepers.

David

How do I apply that to custom profile beams and standard beams? I've checked the settings but didn't find anything. Also using the poly-count Level of Details did nothing for me...

It crashed again today because it wouldn't load the elements in 3D/. As a 'guide' what is the general amount of polygons in one project (i.e have you experienced as high as what is now 56,000 ?)

If this doesn't work I will refer Ralph's post on using OBJECTiVE.

Thank You

[Link]

As a 'guide' what is the general amount of polygons in one project (i.e have you experienced as high as what is now 56,000 ?)

I just did a check on one of our commercial projects and it came in at nearly half a million polygons. And that's with door knobs turned off, but I know they go much higher.

Cheers,
Link.

[Barry Kelly]

Link wrote:

As a 'guide' what is the general amount of polygons in one project (i.e have you experienced as high as what is now 56,000 ?)

I just did a check on one of our commercial projects and it came in at nearly half a million polygons. And that's with door knobs turned off, but I know they go much higher.

Cheers,
Link.

It's not how many polygons you have but what you can do with them that counts.

Barry.

[David Maudlin]

NStocks wrote:
How do I apply that to custom profile beams and standard beams?

Taking Ralph's illustration # 1 as an example, each curve will generate 9 facets, so that profile would generate about 75 polygons. Chamfers could replace the curves, reducing the polygon count to about 20. You could select one piece of rail and get a polygon count to see how many polygons your custom profiles are generating. Standard beams (rectangles) are as simple already.

David