15-20 mins to calculate pattern feature?! 2

[Hunor]

It takes 15-20 mins to add 1000 elements (small cubes to a surface) using pattern feature. Is this normal? I'm just curious about wether it is OK or not considering the config I have or something may be wrong with it. Do anyone have information or assumption regarding how much does this operation takes on a similar computer?

The config is the following:

OS: xp pro sp2
SW ver: SW 2005 sp.5.
ram: 1G
cpu: 3200+ amd64
video card: 6600GT Nvidia Geforce

 

[tbryant]

How complex is the feature that you are patterning. I just did a simple cube on a plate with 10x100 instances and it created the pattern in under 5 seconds. Using feature statistics shows it takes 1.8 sec to rebuild the pattern. Are there any fillets on the block you are patterning?
Are you doing a feature pattern or a body pattern?

Todd

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Interesting! I just did a similar test which took 1m 12s to generate & shows 1.94s to rebuild.
Things have definitely improved since SW04, which was the last time I tried such a pattern>

tbryant ... What are you machine & software specs?


Helpful SW websites FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions FAQ559-1091

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

JohnAndrews ... SW has a Variable Pattern option, but that is used for forcing a patterned feature to change size with respect to a reducing area. I would assume the SW normal pattern equates to WFs Identical option.

I do not know of a comparison for WFs General option.

What are your computer specs?


Helpful SW websites FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions FAQ559-1091

 

[tbryant]

I am running SW 2006 SP3.
My machine is a P4 3.4 GHz
2 Gig of Ram with an ATI Fire GL V3100
Windows XP SP2.

Not really anything special, but it is clean, it was reimaged before installing SW 2006 at the end of last year and I don't install anything questionable on it.

I don't think your video card will have too much to do with how long it takes to make the pattern it will effect the parts performance after it though. Rotation is much slower than normal for me on the part I made.

Todd

 

[J-C]

Hunor, you could post a pic of the geometry.

Patterning 1000 cubes on a flat surface is one thing, but the geometry is curved, that's another.

Solidworks has one option really "Geometry Pattern". If it is checked, then end conditions of the patterned feature are not solved for each pattern instance and each instance is identical geometry to the parent or seed feature. Unchecked (the default) means it does solve end condition. So if the end condition was "up to surface", then each instance will solve for that surface meaning the extrude depth varies for each which of course takes longer.

The other option "Verification on Rebuild" in Tools/Options/Performance if checked applies additional error checking and can slow down rebuilds. It affects everything in the tree. Depending on the complexity of the geometry, rebuilds can be quite a bit slower with this option on. The irony here is, the more complex geometry which is already slow to rebuild really needs this option on to be sure the model is "tight".

Anyway, so I would try these otions and see if that helps. And may show us a pic and explain how you are going about creating this.


Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2005 SP5.0 on WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2006 SP3.0 on WinXP SP2

 

[smcadman]

Tools > Options > System Properties > Document Propeties > Image Quality: try reducing the image quality, and also see if you can tweak the performance settings also.

Flores
SW06 SP3.0

 

[Hunor]

Something must be wrong with the PC or the config of SW at work, because I tried the same feature on my P3 800 Mhz monster PC at home, and with 2000 elements it calculated max 30 sec (geom. pattern). The pc at work is crap (or the configuration of solidworks is crappy)

 

[kellnerp]

You can test the PC by running STAR and PATBENCH from here:

http://www.engtran.com/SWBM001.html

Post your results including settings and I will check them against my system.

 

[Hunor]

The crappy pc is in the other office of our firm, and I think by the time I'll go there again, Solidworks will be already installed to a better computer. (We ordered office and engineer class PCs and the sysadmin put Solid onto one of the office PCs