Is my file size normal?

[Anonymous]

Hi there - I have been working on my first project on Archicad. It is a residential project and it's a custom home. The file size seems to have grown a lot recently as I have added furniture and surfaces to the model. It is a large house at about 5000sf. Right now with the model fully built I'm around 220mb - does this sound right for a project this size? Would this be considered a larger file size or average for a custom home this size? I haven't really begun the CD portion yet either so I imagine it will grow larger. I know I have some older objects that were imported that I didn't use that I can delete so maybe that will help. But my primary question is just if this file size sounds right or if it sounds too large? Thank you!

[Erwin Edel]

At first glance I would say it is a bit large. You may have photos, PDF and other files embedded. There is an option to 'Store Drawing in the Project File' when you place PDF and images and such.

A large number of Layouts will also increase the size a lot.

I do not use the embedded library much, but if I include my project library folder, typical medium to large home will be around 50-100 MB.

We do have some office libraries that are used in every project, that I am not including in this size.

A hotel with 55 rooms project we are working on is around 250 MB and still works fine, so the file size itself is not something to worry about in terms of speed.

[Anonymous]

I do have a lot of objects I imported from Sketchup for furniture that are in my embedded library that I think are maybe making the file bigger. I don't have any PDF's or images in there though other than images I brought in to use as textures for the 3D model...do you think those kinds of texture image files would have an impact? Thank you!

[Richard Morrison]

SJPHouse wrote:
I do have a lot of objects I imported from Sketchup for furniture that are in my embedded library that I think are maybe making the file bigger. I don't have any PDF's or images in there though other than images I brought in to use as textures for the 3D model...do you think those kinds of texture image files would have an impact? Thank you!

They could have an impact if higher resolution than you need, but a high polycount from certain Sketchup models is a likely candidate. As Erwin says, this may not be a problem for working, but if you are looking to make a model leaner for use in BIMx, you might want to reduce the polycount. You can check with the polycount tool (a goodie) to see where you're at. If you have a lot of turned balusters or newels, that is often a place to look. There are tools such as Accutrans 3D (www.micromouse.ca) or MooTools (http://www.mootools.com/plugins/us/) that can significantly cut the size of the polygon count without losing too much of the model.

Here's a good article: https://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/tips/bimx/bimx-optimization/#Optimizing_Model_Size

[Anonymous]

Some great tips Richard thank you! I will do some research over the weekend...I'm guessing its probably the Sketchup objects I've brought in. Thank you!