SEO or complex profiles?

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,
I'm working on the construction design for a high energy efficiency house, that has to be designed to eliminate any possible thermal bridge.

I'm using complex structures for opaque elements (walls, slabs etc.). I need all these elements to intersect in the cleanest possible way to create high quality construction details for contractors. So far, I've been modelling these intersections with solid element operations, but I know I can get a similar result using complex profiles.

I was wondering, from a purely BIM modelling point of view, what makes the model "lighter" or heavier"?

Thanks!

Enrico

[Link]

Lots of things contribute to the 'weight' of a file: layouts, modules, attributes, quantity of elements, etc. Polygons are another big drain, and in your case you have the resultant number of polygons + the polygons of the solid element operators (esp. when they're visible). Furthermore you have the SEO relationships, that ArchiCAD needs to recall. These can really slow your file down when there's a lot of operations and relationships.

That said, it stands to reason that Complex Profiles would be the better choice as you have fewer overall polygons and no SEO relationships.

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

It is very important to define precisely what are/will be the goals for the model. For instance, you say that the only goal is to create high quality construction details for the contractor. Base on this, all the decisions regarding modeling choices should be drawing oriented.

But on the other hand you also say that you are working on the design of a high energy efficient house, which could mean that you want (or could at some time want) to use the model for thermal analysis.

Also it is fair to presume that this model could later on be used for quantity extraction on a design level, or even on a construction level - planning and management. If those could be the case, then choosing complex profiles or SEOs aqquire a whole different relevance. For instance, SEOs sometimes originate wrong quantities. On the other hand, it is not easy to extract quantities from complex profiles.

Finally, you say it is a "house", so I am presuming this will be a small building. If so, poly count and SEO overweight should not be a decisive factor, because the model, even with a very high level of detail, will always be relatively small.

Bottom line is: Try to anticipate what the model will be used for, and plan the modeling choices for those goals.

[Anonymous]

Thank you Krippal.

My model is for a relatively small house (350 m2 gross surface, including garages etc.), however, once I start using complex structures and SEOs, archicad becomes super super slow, to a point that is barely usable. It may ne some corrupted elements, (due to the SEO operations?) I have no idea, it just does not work.

I'm working on a mac, so I'm still running on 32 bits (which I'm rather bitter about).

The goal for my model are:

1) representation (what is where, basically)

2) basic quantity assessment: enough to export "raw" data to be worked on in excel (shall we start discussing the ancient Archicad calculate menu?). I just need to know, for example, how many square meters of "Wall type 1" are there, then I compute the details in Excel.

I'm doing all energy calculation in other softwares (Xclima, PHPP and so on). I'm not using any 3d energy modelling programs (ones that need bgXML esports).

[Anonymous]

Enrico wrote:
My model is for a relatively small house (350 m2 gross surface, including garages etc.), however, once I start using complex structures and SEOs, archicad becomes super super slow, to a point that is barely usable.

By the specs of the machine you have in your signature, this should not happen. I would check the model immediately, because the hours you spend in checking will be compensated by the hours you don't loose waiting for the computer to deal with the file:

- Do a polycount (download the add-on) anything under 150.000/200.000 should be ok with your machine.
- Redo SEOs. Cut and paste all the elements that are operating and methodically redo the SEOs between them. Only SEO elements that need to be SEOed.
- Check your meshes. Usually they have way to many points.
- Throw away anything that is not needed, especially if you have many instances of the same object: 3D trees, 3D people.

There are other checking you can do, but those will surely bring you good results.