Custom crop region causes super slow and large PDF's and DWF's

[jmqrsq]

Has this issue been addressed by Autodesk at all yet? The ability to have custom shaped crop regions is invaluable for us and we cannot justify their use with the current printing problems as it relates to these. Our 5 page PDF/DWF's take an hour to print and are >100MB.

[AJA14]

In revit 2014, you can use custom shaped crop regions. What version are you using.

Regards,

[jmqrsq]

My bad for not being clearer, while printing to PDF or DWF in Revit 2014 if you try to print a sheet with a view that has a custom shaped crop region with angles the result is very slow and the file size is huge. I can't imagine the majority of Revit users are happy with this problem....

[AJA14]

Have you tried exporting to dwg first. I export to dwg and haven't seen much trouble with that. I know it would take double the time but if it works it saves time in the end.

[jmqrsq]

No I haven't for that very reason. Takes more time. Thanks for the suggestion though.

[CoreyDaun]

I think this is a "price of progress" situation - the non-rectangular Crop Regions are brand new and this seems to be a well know issue with them. Voice your concerns wherever you can; below is a feedback link that is frequently provided by some of the Autodesk Support personnel here. Also, perhaps consider participating in the AUGI Wish List effort.

---

Autodesk Product Support

The following link is setup for you to submit feature requests, or feedback, directly to our Development group:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=1109794

---

[hrm3]

We are having the exact same issue and would prefer that Autodesk address this, even by saying the feature is not usefully functional. I was going to make my own post till I discovered this one, so I'll add my comments below:

Revit 2014 SP2 ::

It seems that when we make a view with an irregular crop region that creating a pdf is prohibitively problematic.  We have tried with both Acrobat Pro and with Bluebeam Revu.   In many cases the pdf will not create. (crashes the app)  In some cases, if it does complete the pdf creation, a pdf of 1 view is almost 300mb!  This is a floor plan that without an irregular crop region is less than 1mb for a pdf.  

What is going on here?

Is there a suggested work around?  otherwise the irregular crop region is pretty worthless since 100% of the time we are using and transfering pdfs.  

Any thoughts or assistance in making this work properly?

[jmqrsq]

Exactly Bob. Thanks for adding your frustrations to this thread as well. I just wonder where we can get a response from Autodesk acknowledging this is an issue.... a **** important one to all of us power users on subscription....

[Alaaeldin_Alsahli]

the development are still working on the issue.

As an alternitive solution, Lower down the pdf resolution to 600 dpi ( it will work for some pdf driver)

[gmartinezj]

I know it has been two months since the last post in this thread, however, I would also like to point out that when creating these customized crop regions, it definitely bumps up the file size when exporting to pdf or dxf. The only work around I can think of is to leave your rectangular crop region and minimize it as much as possible and use a masking region to mask the other information you might want to hide. I also have trouble with the customized crop regions when it comes to annotation and annotation crops along with the non-rectangular region. I usually turn off the annotation crop when using a customized region so that it does not extend further than needed and annotation which relys on the regular crop region will stay tight to the boundary. If there is other annotation beyond the extents of my crop region I will just cross select and hide it all for that view. 

Hopefully autodesk will fix this problem soon...

-g2m2

[CharlesBerteaux]

We are having the same issue. and it appears that everyone will. the easiest work around I racked my brain and came up with is to use a rectangular crop region and use a masking region to hide what you dont want to see. Sucks I know. but untill Autodesk fixes this feature, its useless........

[jason.quarry]

Can anyone from Autodesk please give us a status of this issue? Has it been eliminated from 2015 or not yet? Thanks

[gmartinezj]

Spoiler

Sorry to say this...but it is still a problem in 2015...I have just converted and custom crops still generate the large file size...Not sure if a update would be able to fix this, but looks like its not going to be fixed until 2016 or never...for now just stick to rectangular crops with masking regions...

That is too bad!

-g2m2

[jason.quarry]

Thanks GM

[CharlesBerteaux]

I did some more testing and it appears to only be an issue when you use angles in the crop region. If you keep it orthagonal it doesnt seen to have an issue, at least with the testing I have done.

[jason.quarry]

You are correct. Its only on angled sketch lines. I read somewhere the beleif was an issue with how Revit masks the areas outside of the crop. It actually uses a mask region behind the scenes. Which makes no sense to me as regular masking regions work just fine.

Again, $6k-7K a license you'd thnik this would be fixed sooner than later considering it was touted as a "new" feature last year. I always give Adesk the benefit of the doubt but c'mon. This is a huge issue for us all....

[Lance.Coffey]

The following article has been written regarding this issue:
Large PDF files when printing to PDF from Revit in certain views/sheets

I also found that with release 12.5, Bluebeam has made changes to prevent/reduce this issue.

I'll be updating the article to also suggest upgrading your PDF producer software, since updates are being released to address the issue.

[jason.quarry]

Great! Good to hear. Without your reply we wouldn't know that it was specifically being addressed. Please keep this thread updated with the latest info. We all appreciate the help

[tbrown6608]

Anyone know of any updates for the annotation crop region to match the shape of the crop region? This is a big issue for me as I'm always getting called out for roomnames from the arch model and my annotations from the independant view showing up outside my crop region. Its especially a problem when annotations go onto the titleblock.

Anyone have any ideas for a work around for this? I can "hide in view" my annotations, but not stuff from the linked model. I know it'll be a while before this gets fixed/answered, but maybe someone has a trick up their sleeve?

[mp_thompson]

Still an issue in Revit 2016.

PDF of Floor plan went from 20Mb to 916Kb after I read this thread and changed a diagonal crop region to a staggered crop region that was orthogonal