Points and performance issue

[DeMi]

At the moment I'm evaluating C3d. I'm working with large lists of locations that I imported into Point Groups. One group for each day, 28 consecutive days, appr. 1000 points each day. So I have a drawing that contains about 28,000 points. The drawing itself is about 45 MB in size, resulting in a memory load of 650 MB when opened. I have a P4-2.6 GHz, 2 GB RAM, 4 GB pagefile. Whatever I do in C3d according to points, takes ages to complete. Few questions:
1. Does anybody have experience with large files and high amounts op points?
2. Does anybody have suggestions to increase performance with the files I use?
3. Is it possible to convert COGO points to Acad points and would this improve performance?

TIA

[Anonymous]

A work around which has been fairly successful for us is to make a point style that turns off all visual/graphic aspects of the point and use this style for the big processing, such as inserting points, computations etc. We have found that the slowest part of processing the points is the acad graphical components - so by neutralizing this issue for processing we have gotten better performance. Obviously when you actually need to see them / plot them - then you will have to choose an appropriate style - and that will of course take some time. A point in general to remember about Civil 3D is that while it is doing it's "magic" its calling on an awful lot of graphic processing routines to keep everything updated all the time. Keeping this point in mind and defining graphic friendly styles like invisible styles can speed up a lot of the work. Good Luck, Natan "DeMi" wrote in message news:6257912.1106749648919.JavaMail.jive@jiveforum1.autodesk.com... > At the moment I'm evaluating C3d. I'm working with large lists of locations that I imported into Point Groups. One group for each day, 28 consecutive days, appr. 1000 points each day. So I have a drawing that contains about 28,000 points. The drawing itself is about 45 MB in size, resulting in a memory load of 650 MB when opened. I have a P4-2.6 GHz, 2 GB RAM, 4 GB pagefile. Whatever I do in C3d according to points, takes ages to complete. Few questions: > 1. Does anybody have experience with large files and high amounts op points? > 2. Does anybody have suggestions to increase performance with the files I use? > 3. Is it possible to convert COGO points to Acad points and would this improve performance? > > TIA

[Anonymous]

Hi, It all comes down to data management. Of what conceivable use is it to have 28,000 points in a drawing? At reasonable spacing and legibility, the most you can plot on an A1 drawing is about 1700. In practice any more than about 200 will cause more clutter in the plot than anyone would want. Once you start getting points in those quantities, the most likely scenario is that they are NS points needed for building a DTM. Why not add them to the DTM via an external file? -- Regards, Laurie Comerford www.cadapps.com.au "DeMi" wrote in message news:6257912.1106749648919.JavaMail.jive@jiveforum1.autodesk.com... > At the moment I'm evaluating C3d. I'm working with large lists of > locations that I imported into Point Groups. One group for each day, 28 > consecutive days, appr. 1000 points each day. So I have a drawing that > contains about 28,000 points. The drawing itself is about 45 MB in size, > resulting in a memory load of 650 MB when opened. I have a P4-2.6 GHz, 2 > GB RAM, 4 GB pagefile. Whatever I do in C3d according to points, takes > ages to complete. Few questions: > 1. Does anybody have experience with large files and high amounts op > points? > 2. Does anybody have suggestions to increase performance with the files I > use? > 3. Is it possible to convert COGO points to Acad points and would this > improve performance? > > TIA

[apweng]

Bravo!

[Anonymous]

Laurie: I am not sure if your comments address the original question. Our survey crews also download their data on a daily basis, which need to be imported in our composite base drawing for the project. As part of the design process, and as a deliverable to the client, we require that all the survey points be included in the drawing file. One of our current projects for the Ministry of Transportation involves over 225,000 points for a 10km highway. Presently we are using CAiCE to design this project, and I would interested to see how Civil 3D performs with this amount of data. To date, I have not had time to start using and evaluating Civil 3D, but it is my intent to do so shortly. Have you any experience with working with large data sets in Civil 3D? Thanks Keith Biggs RF Binnie & Associates Ltd. #103 - 7382 Winston Street, Burnaby, B.C. V5A 2G9 Phone: 604-420-1721 (ext 238) Fax: 604-420-4743 "Laurie Comerford" wrote in message news:41f7f7f0$1_3@newsprd01... > Hi, > > It all comes down to data management. Of what conceivable use is it to have > 28,000 points in a drawing? At reasonable spacing and legibility, the most > you can plot on an A1 drawing is about 1700. In practice any more than > about 200 will cause more clutter in the plot than anyone would want. > > Once you start getting points in those quantities, the most likely scenario > is that they are NS points needed for building a DTM. Why not add them to > the DTM via an external file? > > -- > > Regards, > > > Laurie Comerford > www.cadapps.com.au

[Anonymous]

Hi Keith, It should be obvious from my comments that I don't have any experience of dealing with large numbers of points in the drawing in Civil 3D. I would NEVER put them there. If my client wanted to handle the data that way, then I would explain to him (politely) the sheer stupidity of doing so. Think like this: I have a parcel of information which I can put on the front seat of my car and deliver it. You have the same information, but are randomly distributing it throughout a sea container of treacle and needing a semi-trailer to deliver it. It reflects the same sort of thinking that because we didn't use layers on a drawing board, why do we need them in AutoCAD? I can handle 300,000 points or 3,000,000 points without problems. I simply store them in an appropriate format. I haven't used Civil 3D to build a DTM with a dataset of that size, so have no information to guide you. However, I would speculate that it would slow drawing processes like panning and zooming significantly. -- Regards, Laurie Comerford www.cadapps.com.au "Keith Biggs" wrote in message news:41f956d3$1_2@newsprd01... > Laurie: > > I am not sure if your comments address the original question. Our survey > crews also download their data on a daily basis, which need to be > imported > in our composite base drawing for the project. As part of the design > process, and as a deliverable to the client, we require that all the > survey > points be included in the drawing file. One of our current projects for > the > Ministry of Transportation involves over 225,000 points for a 10km > highway. > Presently we are using CAiCE to design this project, and I would > interested > to see how Civil 3D performs with this amount of data. To date, I have not > had time to start using and evaluating Civil 3D, but it is my intent to do > so shortly. Have you any experience with working with large data sets in > Civil 3D? > > Thanks > > Keith Biggs > RF Binnie & Associates Ltd. > #103 - 7382 Winston Street, Burnaby, B.C. V5A 2G9 > Phone: 604-420-1721 (ext 238) > Fax: 604-420-4743 > > > > "Laurie Comerford" wrote in > message > news:41f7f7f0$1_3@newsprd01... >> Hi, >> >> It all comes down to data management. Of what conceivable use is it to > have >> 28,000 points in a drawing? At reasonable spacing and legibility, the >> most >> you can plot on an A1 drawing is about 1700. In practice any more than >> about 200 will cause more clutter in the plot than anyone would want. >> >> Once you start getting points in those quantities, the most likely > scenario >> is that they are NS points needed for building a DTM. Why not add them to >> the DTM via an external file? >> >> -- >> >> Regards, >> >> >> Laurie Comerford >> www.cadapps.com.au > >

[DeMi]

Thanx for your reply, Natan. I had already switched off visibility of nearly all parts except for the point style marker...

[DeMi]

Thanx for your reply.
I do not intend to plot the points. They only need to be visible on my screen.
What do you mean with "NS points needed for building a DTM"?

[apweng]

Hi Keith,

In Civil 3D you could also build a surface from point that reside in an external text file, without importing them first.

Then all you're dealing with is the display of the surface as far as performance is concerned.

Andrew

[Anonymous]

Hi, Why do they need to be visible on your screen? -- Regards, Laurie Comerford www.cadapps.com.au "DeMi" wrote in message news:14578171.1107172136093.JavaMail.jive@jiveforum2.autodesk.com... > Thanx for your reply. > I do not intend to plot the points. They only need to be visible on my > screen. > What do you mean with "NS points needed for building a DTM"?

[Anonymous]

Andrew: I have built surfaces from an external text file, which work quite quickly. This method assumes that the data is correct in the text file, which is not always the case when we receive data from our survey crews. I know, we need to educate and inform our surveyors on how to make their data collection perfect for DTM modeling, but, until we receive a survey file with no errors, we need to review all the data in the drawing. I make a point of using point descriptor keys to import the survey points on to their respective layers, which does help with point display and regenerating the drawing. The thing that concerns me is that if Civil 3D can not manage a large data set in the same manner as CAiCE, then Autodesk is going to lose their CAiCE customers, who will not migrate to Civil 3D, but to another CAD package, such as In-Roads. Keith "apweng" wrote in message news:5805497.1107187223271.JavaMail.jive@jiveforum2.autodesk.com... > Hi Keith, > > In Civil 3D you could also build a surface from point that reside in an external text file, without importing them first. > > Then all you're dealing with is the display of the surface as far as performance is concerned. > > Andrew

[Anonymous]

I for one would be curious in how many people would "construct" a record plat without points visible on the screen. wfb "Laurie Comerford" wrote in message news:41fe9171_2@newsprd01... > Hi, > > Why do they need to be visible on your screen? > > -- > > Regards, > > > Laurie Comerford > www.cadapps.com.au > > "DeMi" wrote in message > news:14578171.1107172136093.JavaMail.jive@jiveforum2.autodesk.com... > > Thanx for your reply. > > I do not intend to plot the points. They only need to be visible on my > > screen. > > What do you mean with "NS points needed for building a DTM"? > >

[Anonymous]

Hi, This conversation is about large numbers of points - not about the small numbers which would be involved in constructing a record plat. But even there, you would only use the points necessary for doing that, and if it was a huge record plat with (say) 10,000 lots, are you implying this would be done in the next five minutes, so you need all the points at once. -- Regards, Laurie Comerford www.cadapps.com.au "wfb" wrote in message news:41ff9ba6_3@newsprd01... >I for one would be curious in how many people would "construct" a record > plat without points visible on the screen. > > wfb > > > "Laurie Comerford" wrote in > message > news:41fe9171_2@newsprd01... >> Hi, >> >> Why do they need to be visible on your screen? >> >> -- >> >> Regards, >> >> >> Laurie Comerford >> www.cadapps.com.au >> >> "DeMi" wrote in message >> news:14578171.1107172136093.JavaMail.jive@jiveforum2.autodesk.com... >> > Thanx for your reply. >> > I do not intend to plot the points. They only need to be visible on my >> > screen. >> > What do you mean with "NS points needed for building a DTM"? >> >> > >

[Anonymous]

Nope, just checking. Bill

[ralphwhisler]

Not sure if it helps anyone, but I clipboard copied/pasted tons of engineers cogo points into my survey file and noticed it was getting successively slower and slower on loading (even just switching between drawing tabs and layouts). I realized that each time I pasted in a new batch of points, my cad file was creating new (duplicate) point groups unnecessarily. After removing all the unnecessary groups, my file runs amazingly.