reducing file size 1

[DISH]

Help I've had some negative feed back on the fie size that my drawing are getting. The are in the range of 18mb+. I am drawing in ACAD2000. The process that I follow is to draw the solid objects in 3D. Inserting blocks as needed. I used to insert as X-Refs But got flack for that because of the need to share these drawings. After my parts are fully drawn I move to Paper Space and use the SOLVIEW, SOLDRAW, command to get the requested hidden line 2d image.
By this point my drawing are huge and crash alot.The drawing are detailed but I think they should not be this big in file size...
Any Suggestions for a frustrated Cad User.???

 

[haggis]

Dish,

It seems you can't win. By sharing the drawings, I take it that you mean e-mailing to other people. Well, I do a lot of plant layout and the drawings would get huge if I didn't use X-refs. Maybe the people you send them to don't know as much about AutoCAD as you do and don't know what X-reffing is and won't admit to it. They may feel better with just one drawing but you see the result. 18 Meg!

Even zipping a drawing that size for e-mail is too big for most peoples mailbox. I would question the ones who gave you flak for X-refs.

You were doing it right in the first place, Dish.

 

[JPARKER70]

I HAVE YOU TRIED RUNNING X-BIND BEFORE YOU SEND THE DRAWINGS OUT?

 

[Maury]

18 mb drawings seem huge to me. Ours rarely get that back.
I agree with the comments from haggis and jparker. Go back to using xrefs. Use e-transmit (used to be pack-n-go) to make sure that the transmittal contains everything needed. If the people you're sharing documents with don't understand xrefs, it's time they learned.

Maury

 

[Adrian2]

Dear Dish;

I have often had to deal with 2D plant layout drawings I consider large (3-5 MB). In my experience it's often very simple things like using true type fonts and an excessive quantity of layers that exacerbate the problem.

You mentioned that you create 2D layouts of your 3D file and I assume these layouts are part of your single 18MB file. Would it help to make these layouts seperate files, so that you would have much smaller 2D files to send to those who dont need the 3D data.

I think binding the xref's would only make the file size even larger. I do bind the xref's on my own drawings but I also purge out any unnecessary layers beforehand.

I have also noticed that many plant layouts are built up by combining vendor supplied cad files into a complete plant layout drawing. This may save time initially but it certainly does make for enormous files. Better to edit the vendor drawings a little to weed out the unnecessary detail. You dont need to see every nut and bolt on a plant layout, save that for the mechanical details.

Best Regards

Adrian D.

 

[haggis]

Just checking to see if Dish got some more advice. All you guys are right on and have added little bits that I left out i.e. purging etc.,

Another good point Adrian2 made was whittling down vendor drawings to use in a plant layout. Sounds like you do very similar work as I do. Good advice Adrin2

Haggis

 

[brite750]

Dish, You should check out a program called AutoSolids ($495) for your 3D work, and yes 3D drawings get big, try 50-100mb, one of the maney features is Quickdraw, it takes your model an makes any view of it into 2D, that you can put in a separate dwg file for e-mailing. And of course there is PDF also. If they want the 3D model e-mailed you may have to sign up for an e-mail service that can handle the large files, they usually run about $15/mo or so.

 

[IFRs]

Use blocks for all duplicated parts. Purge the drawing and/or write-block it to make a new one. Upgrade to R2004 will immediatly reduce file sizes by 50% or so (but does not help for sharing with those on R2000).

 

[tomcad]

All the above are great tips. I sometimes use this one to reduce the file size. When I start a drawing, I might save subsequent changes in a numbering sequence, a,b,c..., purging and erasing in each drawing [old ones are deleted]. I read somewhere that even though purge and erase removes the object from display, the database grows in size. It seems once the it's in the database, there's no getting rid of it. However, I've experimented with creating a new drawing, then copy and paste from the old. In small drawings this is a waste of time, but sometimes it'll work in large files. Note though, to do a "Select All" will not reduce the cut/paste new drawing, I found that selecting objects individually works better. Sometimes it's not worth the efforts, but until it's tried - who knows...?

 

[IFRs]

Also, set ISAVEPERCENT to zero.
But, the biggest saver for me is to use a block for ANY and ALL 3D objects that are used more than once.

 

[Friptzap]

I don't know if this can help you or not. If you or others that give you drawings use layer filters that can add a huge amount of space to a cad file. I have seen files go from 4 meg down to 1 after deleting the layer filters. use this following lisp routine to delete them as manually it may take forever. I have seen some files with over 100 filters.
Create a lisp file called lfd.lsp and add this into it :

(defun c:LFD ()
(vl-Load-Com)
(vl-Catch-All-Apply '(lambda ()
(vla-Remove
(vla-GetExtensionDictionary
(vla-Get-Layers
(vla-Get-ActiveDocument
(vlax-Get-Acad-Object)))) "ACAD_LAYERFILTERS&quot))
(princ "\nAll layer filters have been deleted.&quot
(princ)
)

 

[DISH]

Thanks to all for all the input.

JPARKER70 I have tried X-bind and then purged the heck out of it deleting as many layers as possible. But unfortunatly it doesn't drop the file size down substancially.

Maury The problem with PACK-AND-GO is that I'm still sending the entire file of 18 mb. PACK-AND-Go is great for sharing files (like transfreing them onto a cd ect.) but isn't the greatest for e-mailing.

Adrian2 I have extracted the 2D data out of the 3D model and copied the data into a new drawing. This in my experience has been the best method of reducing file size, but the drawback is it greatly increases the time I spend on a drawing. But since I'm getting paid hourly,Let them complain about file size until they start to complain about drawing time. (it never ends does it ???)

IFRs I guess that my next step is to try out the ISAVEPERCENT variable

Thanks all for the tips and keep them comming

 

[torkflite]

thank you friptzap!!! You are a drafting god.
I really got the files to slim down. We were overlooking the layer filters!!!!
Thanks a bunch

 

[JStephen]

Without knowing in detail what you are doing...Does your work really need to be drawn in 3D? Maybe that basic assumption is the problem.

 

[IFRs]

Another item: if possible, use MInsert (MultipleInsert) if you have a rectangular grid of the same block.

ALso: I'm not sure if inserting a block 5 times is the same as inserting it once and copying it 4 times.

 

[jkar]

On the same note, i have realised that plain solid extrusions does not take as much space as revolved surfaces. Incase you have an alternative to revolved objects, check out and see if it is possible to replace. This has worked for me. I cannot explain how...

 

[letric]

Awhile back I also found the LDF.lsp to work great. I also use Lpurge.lsp in conjuction with it. I can usually take 2mb files down to around 500k. I don't remember where I got this, but with a little research, it's worth it.