Topic Title

I have some relatively large ACAD files (~40mb) that when imported that are extremely "sticky" - much like a large xref with dynamic snap on. I have all snaps turned off, snap grid off, etc. so not sure what is left to manipulate - is there a filter/option I am unaware of? Obviously none of these issues with the ACAD file in ACAD... any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Tim

Without seeing the files, there are a couple things that come to mind (that may or may not be correct):
1) A large amount of "dynamic blocks" (for example, a door that - in Acad - you can resize and has built-in multiple entities), or
2) Large, complex hatches, or
3) Multiple xref's that are buried two, three, or more entities deep (or the computer is trying to find the paths of them), or
4) Large referenced raster images

Beyond that, I'm out of my league.

Thanks for the suggestions. If it was sticking on specific blocks (aka symbols) that would make sense but it appears to be a "world" problem. The entire drawing is "sticky" as though there is a hidden snap grid. I saved the autocad file with grid off before I opened it in datacad ...am going to try dumbing down the acad file by saving it to successively older file formats perhaps that will do the trick. It is a large file so perhaps DCAD simply can't handle it (lots of elements/blocks but nothing dynamic or complex, no xrefs, etc.).

Best,

Hi Tim!

Usually for something like this I try to see if I can find a way to narrow down what is causing it. Some things that come to mind that I would try one at a time to see if things speed up are;

- When importing, do you use the move to origin option? Sometimes this can help with wonky math if things are too far from absolute zero.
- After the DWG import, close and save the AEC file (and any other open files. Also wouldn't recommend having any other files open while doing DWG imports. ). Then run the File, Repair tool. Follow the prompts and if invalid entities are found, allow Datacad to remove them. Save and close the resulting file. Then import the resulting repaired AEC file into a new default AEC file. If everything looks good at this point, you should be good to go using this file as your starting point. Clay shared this with me years ago as a good first 1-2 punch to clean up issues, and it really does seem to help. I do it to all DWG files I import now.
- Try turning the display of things like linetypes or hatch one at a time and see if one helps speed up things. You can also toggle off the display of these things in the Repair Tool mentioned above.
- Check for things like special or odd characters in the file or layer names. Replace those characters as needed.
- Turn of all layers , then turn them on one at a time to see if one causes issues more than others. If you find one, note it, turn it back off and continue on looking for other layers with issues. Sometimes this is enough to figure out what entities or layers might be causing your issues and you can work on removing or replacing the troubled entities / layers right then. When I have my list of trouble layers, then I'll try a File, Purge of the file, unselecting the trouble layers, and Saving it to a new AEC file and see if that resulting file works good. If it does, I save it as a milestone file. Then stating with a single layer at a time, copying only the contents of the trouble layer I need to the clipboard and pasting it into a new temp file and see how the copied contents act. Often this copying of only the entities I really need closely around the main working area of the drawing will leave behind stray entities way outside the main drawing area. If things look good in my temp file once all the info is pasted into it. I save the temp file, close it and reopen it. If it's still looking good, then I will import that temp file into the milestone file created earlier.

So as you might be able to tell from the suggestions above, my main method of trying to get things working better is trying to eliminate possible troubled entities and leaving them behind thru different processes. It can take time with especially troubled files, but it's worth it usually to avoid issues down the road which can be bigger headaches later.

Good luck Tim!

Thanks Josh -
Was hoping the repair concept would do the trick but I think it's going to be a matter of cleaning up some of the layers-drawings were originally pulled off a sketchup model cut so lots of line segments among other things. I think it's simply gagging on the number of entities because it speeds right up if I have the entity heavy layers turned off.

Best,

Tim

If you have lots of entities that came from SUP, you may want to run a couple of passes in Acad to try and simplify the entities (ie. 'Delete Duplicate Objects' in the 'Modify' drop-down; 'Overkill' from the command line, and (at worst because it's so mouse/time intensive) 'Join').

The other big take-away from Josh's comments is to NOT import the Acad file into an existing AEC file. Import it into a new (clean) AEC model and clean it up as much as possible, then copy those entities left to a new AEC file (or, simply use the clean AEC file to xref into your original AEC file.

As wonderful as SketchUP is, if the original model wasn't cleaned up to start with, and just the problems created with the export to DWG of multiple entities due to the intersections of them - you have to be very judicious in using them.

Good luck!