Anyone creating more complex part files than this? 1

[Sneakers]

Just curious, is anyone out there creating large complex part files in SolidWorks?

I design shoe soles, below I have posted the feature statistics for a particulalry large file I recently completed.

42 minute rebuild, 5 minutes just to hit save. This file has over 1,800 features. File size; 650 Megs.

Typically I create base parts to avoid such a large file, I did this as more of a test of SolidWorks. It actually handles the file quite well. Just a few crashes over the two weeks of modeling.

http://img164.imageshack.us/my.php?image=largemodel5yo.gif

-Matt Dunbar

 

[J-C]

What's your computer specs?

The largest part I've done is around 550 features and it takes about 90 seconds to rebuild.

I would certain recommend using the Insert part feature and distribute this over several files.

Can you post a pic of the shoe sole?

Wonder if Solidworks would like a copy of your file for benchmarking?

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2006 SP4.0 on WinXP SP2

 

[Sneakers]

Jason,

Unfortunately I cannot post pics of this shoe sole until it is out on the market.

3.2 Ghz Xeon
2 gig Ram
XP Pro
SW 2006 SP2.0
FireGL V7100

Matt

 

[SBaugh]

when you start getting into work like that you might consider exporting it out as a parasolid and bringing it back into SW and continue your work on the project.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376

 

[Sneakers]

Scott,

Typically that is exactly what I do. Because of the rebuild time, it isn't practical to roll back very far. It was nice with this model to have to history all in one file though. Often I will roll back in the tree just to save out a body, then close the file without rolling forward. Finally I import that body into the bottom of the tree and continue modeling.

It is also convenient that my final output needs only be a dumb solid.

-Matt

 

[dgowans]

How about submitting an enhancement request to Solidworks which would essentially prevent a rebuild of any features before a user specified "milestone"? That is to say, a user could arbitrarily determine a point in the feature tree where features were considered finalized and a rebuild (or a rollback to a point after this "locked" point) would ignore anything before this point.

Obviously, the user would need to be able to go back and edit features before this point if necessary, but if you're just working at the end of your tree and want to rollback a handful of features, this could be a time saver.

This wouldn't solve the file size problem, but it would essentially accomplish what you're doing without creating any additional files.

 

[TheTick]

Pro/E lets you lock features that don't change or need to be regenerated. Time saver, that.

 

[kellnerp]

Just curious, is anyone out there creating large complex part files in SolidWorks?

I design shoe soles, below I have posted the feature statistics for a particulalry large file I recently completed.

I have done this in the past, but not on your scale.

Such a file is large by anyone's standards. The recent modeling challenge showed that there can be a large span of times for completing identical geometry based on technique. We saw a 10:1 difference in regen time based on method. Unfortunately it is not always apparent what technique is going to work.

With a 650 Mb file I have to ask how much ram this part consumes both when loaded and when rebuilding? If you are running into disk swapping that can seriously hurt rebuild times. 2.6 Gb is about the max that you can usefully use.

Just out of curiosity how many of the features have complex sketches? By that I mean more than two dozen relations.

One thing is apparent with a part file like this. It doesn't really need to be parametric or at least not fully parametric. So saving out solids is probably a good way to go.

3.2 Ghz Xeon
2 gig Ram
XP Pro
SW 2006 SP2.0
FireGL V7100

This is kind of middle of the road hardware. The AMD 64bit single core systems would likely show a near doubling in speed.

TOP

http://www.engtran.com

http://www.niswug.org

 

[Sneakers]

Top,

What you mentioned about rebuild times related to modeling approach is a good point. I should point out that on this file, the feature count is not completely accurate. This is because I have a few dozen suppressed features. The suppressed features still show in the feature statistics.

If you're curious, this is the reason for the suppressed features...
I have no intention of ever unsuppressing these features. Lets say I created a surface as the first feature in the file... then I create 400 more features with nothing related to that first surface/feature. Then, lets say I do an Untrim to that first surface and it takes 90 seconds to rebuild and I don't get the result I want... At this point if I delete the Untrim it will rebuild the 400 intermediate features.. but if I just suppress it, I don't have to wait for the rebuild.

Another point is that this file could probably be created in half as many features. The original model took just a few days, then I was given some revisions that would have required rolling all the way back to the beginning. At this point I usually save out the file to a dumbsolid. Instead, I just treated the file as if it were a dumbsolid and added new features to the tree. (just to test solidworks)

Most of my files consume .75 to 1.25 gigs. I have not used the page file on any of my models.

There are only a few complex sketchs. I delete sketch relations in large sketches whenever practical.

Sorry for the long post, thanks for the feedback!

Matt

 

[RawheadRex]

Wow! That's big flippin' part file both in terms of features an file size. I just wanted to comment. The dumb solid suggestion is a very good one. Certainly something that I will keep in mind as a "nice to know" kind of thing. Personally I have never done a part model with over 100 features. Assemblies and drawings are something that I've seen perform that poorly but parts have never given me that kind of trouble.

Thanks to everyone for posting! I found the thread very informative.



Chris Gervais
Application Engineeer
CADD Edge

 

[dezignstuff]

I recently did a large shopping cart where the basket was all plastic. I broke this into several panels, and modeled each panel as a separate part. The overall layout was also its own part, and contained the primary surfaces used in the rest of the project.

In the end there were 5 different parts which were inserted as base parts into a top level part. I did things this way to segment the rebuild times, and it works except for at the top level. Whenever you switch from a lower level part to the top level part, it rebuilds every time. As long as you work on the pieces independently, it's great.

I was actually tasked with reducing the rebuild time for it by coming up with a better way to model it. The original was a 14 minute rebuild, and I think it is now in the 2-4 minute range for the top level part. Rebuild times and number of features are very dependent on modeling technique.

 

[kellnerp]

Most of my files consume .75 to 1.25 gigs. I have not used the page file on any of my models.

If you do a saveas or use EcoSqueeze what happens to the file size? Do you have multiple configs?

TOP

http://www.engtran.com

http://www.niswug.org

 

[Sneakers]

TOP,
Good point, the file still contained shadow data, Save As reduced the file size to 330 Mb. Saving the file to a dumb solid reduces the file to 28 Mb. Quite a difference from 650!

Matt

 

[J-C]

Wonder what 2007 will do to the file, it was mentioned that the file sizes would be up to 40-50% smaller.

You don't happen to be in the beta?

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2006 SP4.0 on WinXP SP2

 

[Sneakers]

I am in beta. I will post my findings to the beta forum, "General".

Matt