ArchiCAD ––––> Modo question

[Anonymous]

Hello guys. I have a question about exporting from Archicad to modo..
I was doing quite a big project in ArchiCAD and decided to make renders in modo.. So i exported the model as 3DS and opened it with modo.. Of course the layer with furniture i did not export.
The problem is, that th imported 3DS was huge. There were plenty of meshes and the model was so heavy, that it was almost impossible to navigate and do something (i have a powerful computer, and even though..).

There must be some trick to export it in some better way – to make the geometry easier to use and navigate in modo.. Does anybody know how to do that? Is there anybody here, who uses modo with ArchiCAD?
Thanks.

[Erwin Edel]

No hands on experience, but what I've heard is that Modo isn't that great with high polygon models.

BIM models generally are very detailed.

You can install the Polycount goodie for your ArchiCAD to see which part of your model is poly heavy and see if you can leave it out of export or reduce the polycount in someway (some objects have low quality settings).

'Sloppy' modelling can also cause quite high poly counts. For example: a complex profile wall with tiny holes or lots of nodes on a shape that is just a rectangle. You will get a lot of extra surfaces this way.

[Barry Kelly]

Not really a 'Developer' issue so I have moved this post to the rendering section.

Barry.

[Bricklyne Clarence]

Just out of curiosity, how big (file size - MBs) was the 3DS file you exported?

There's lots of tricks you can use to get overly complicated models from AC to an external rendering program, but most of the time you wouldn't need them especially when using a format like 3DS (the 3D model world's version of JPG's) .Everything from cutting planes and the marquee tool to shutting off some objects

I've exported pretty massive models (polycount-wise) from ArchiCAD to 3DS Max and to Rhino and I've been able to handle them just fine before having to resort to these workarounds. It may just be that Modo has a difficult time handling non-natively generated geometry
It might also be that it's preferable to export them into a different file format (like say, FBX or OBJ) since some programs don't translate 3DS formats very well.