Raster Image is slow to zoom and pan in AutoCAD Map 3D 2015

[samuel.song]

Hello,

I just installed Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite 2015 Premium and in AutoCAD Map 3D 2015, zooming and panning after inserting a raster image is extremely slow.  The raster file is a GeoTIFF format at 20 MB.  I had no problem with AutoCAD Map 3D 2014 but when I upgraded, raster performance decreased.  Anybody else experiencing this???

P.S.  I changed toe IMAGEQUALITY to "Draft" and it is still slow...

[Alfred.NESWADBA · Accepted solution]

Hi,

welcome @forums.autodesk.com!

>> after inserting a raster image

Have you used command _MAPCONNECT or _MAPIINSERT or _IINSERT (from RasterDesign)? I would try at least both of the first commands with new drawings and your image and verify the display performance then.

Also the hardware is something that might be a reason for speed, so what GC do you have and what driver is installed.

You can also start command _3DCONFIG and try both hardware acceleration settings, on and off, which one can handle PAN and ZOOM with your image faster?

- alfred -

[samuel.song]

Alfred,

_MAPIINSERT from Raster Design worked!  Thank you!  I was having performance issues with _MAPCONNECT.  I have no idea why raster image performance is different from _MAPIINSERT and _MAPCONNECT...

Sam

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

thank you for your feedback, _MAPCONNECT and _MAPIINSERT use different techniques for referencing and displaying (and _MAPIINSERT is a function built in Map3D, not RasterDesign, RasterDesign function would be _IINSERT).

Good to know it works now for you!

- alfred -

[aneal]

To me this is really just a workaround, and not one that works for us, because we have spent a good bit of time putting together preset layers for different work areas, and many of our projects have them in as FDO already.  I don't want to throw away all those hours. I have also heard people think it's utilizing the wrong card - that may be true in some circumstances, but not in ours. 

MAPIINSERT I'm not really feeling either because for some reason its going much slower on the initial load. It appears that something is up with the way the hardware acceleration is processing raster graphics in the 2015 engine - don't know if it's the acad engine or tied to map. 

Note all I'm about to say is in 2D only.  95% of our efforts are in 2D. 

So here is what I have learned to date trying to fix this issue:

Some are saying it is using the integrated graphics card instead of the accelerated card.  I'm not so sure of that.  When I look at the Graphics card properties, it shows the integrated graphics card listed at the top, but the tuner log notes the quadro k1000m is my primary card.  

With Hardware acceleration on, I was using GPU-Z (a benchmarking tool for graphics cards) to watch my graphics card utilization and it was ONLY showing utilization of the K1000M, so I am pretty certain that it's using the right card.  With hardware acceleration off, GPU utilization is very low single digits no matter what I do.  Fast pans and zooms, it can get up to 50% when I'm panning and zooming. 

Funny thing is, I see absolutely no performance loss with GPU utilization off, and I can pan and zoom with the hi-res FDO object displayed (several 20 MB images tiled together) with a <.5 econd lag on panning.  Beats the pants off the 30+seconds it is taking to pan with hardware acceleration on. And looking at the GPU Benchmarking, 0% load on the quadro for the snappy performance with hardware acceleration off, while during the whole 30 seconds with it on, the GPU is consistently around 15% and one of my processor cores has a full load.  

I think it definitely indicates there is a snafu in the algorithim to utilize the GPU for raster images somewhere between the new autocad engine and Map3D that creates the heavy processor load.  With some of the new changes on the graphics processing end  and different departments coming together on the development between the map team and autodesk engine team, I hope they look into what the software is doing here. 

In the meantime, from what I can tell the best bugfix if you work in 2D is just to turn off the graphics acceleration.  Run a few tests yourself, but if you are like me, benchmarks will show little to no difference, making me question now why spend the $$$ on an accelerated video card in the first place unless you are doing 3d modeling?  Sure, the GPU utilization takes load off of the CPU, but it seems to only when the application is in focus, and when it's in focus, so long as it has the CPU's priority, I rarely if ever have background apps that need more than one core of load, and Autocad is still programmed in a way that many functions seem to work in serial, so a lot of graphic intense analyses still seem to have to wait on the CPU to process - worth noting, I never saw heavy gpu utilization exceed 40% and everytime it hit that high, one core was fully utilized, making me believe there is still a bottleneck with the CPU required functions for what I do in Civil3d. 

Has anybody tried forcing 2015 back to DirectX 9 as a solution to the problem? 

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> making me question now why spend the $$$ on an accelerated video card in the first place unless you are doing 3d modeling?

I guess that's the major question, In my understanding all graphic acceleration invests are done for performance raising for 3D-modelling and video, nothing in 2D and so you might be right: transfering the mass of pixelinformation of rasterimages from main memory to graphics card may take more time than the gc can than help with faster panning (primitiv worded), so spending $ into 3D for doing 2D graphics may be the wrong way.

>> Has anybody tried forcing 2015 back to DirectX 9

What DirectX version is used depends on your driver, imho not on AutoCAD.

- alfred -

[parkr4st]

I found 2015 is a bit slower than 2014 was on the rewrite to the monitors with photo images.  loading  up to 4 GB of image isn't a problem. Beyond that the slowness starts to show.

What works is minimizing panning and zooming.  Use views instead as much as practically possible.

The other practice is to turn off the image layer when you don't need it. 

What is your GC?

This is what I have.  http://www.amd.com/documents/AMD_FirePro_V7900_datasheet.pdf 

driver 8.911.3.1000  directx 11

HW Accel is on

dave

[aneal]

I'm finding that any redraw results in the problem, so changing layers, etc. also impacts it.  I don't know if working in static views is going to be a solution for us either - snapping to objects in highly congested areas definitley requires a lot of panning and zooming on larger complex projects. 

Yes, I guess the specs woudl help!  Using a Dell Precision M4700 with a Core i7-3520M CPU @ 2.9GHz CPU

Graphics card is an NVIDIA Quadro K1000M.  This is a notebook computer that is docked. 

[aneal]

Thanks for the reply Alfred. 

 >> >> Has anybody tried forcing 2015 back to DirectX 9

>>What DirectX version is used depends on your driver, imho not on AutoCAD.

I should have provided more clarification - another post on the subject led to this autocad knowledgebase article.  I don't think the problem was for the same situation, I was just wondering if doing this changed it. http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/How-to-...

---

[jonathan.kwa]

Hi @Alfred.NESWADBA , @samuel.song 

Sorry to reopen an old thread but I am having a similar issue with .ecw .eww files.  Where can I find this 'RasterDesign' and is it included in standard AutoCAD?  Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

[Pointdump]

Jonathan,
Go to your account at >>>https://manage.autodesk.com/<<<. Are you rocking Vanilla or Civil/Map? I can't remember whether Raster Design is included.

Dave

[jonathan.kwa]

Hi Dave,

I went to that link but it doesn't list any products - perhaps it might be because I'm not the person managing the licences.  I can tell you I have vanilla 2017-2019 and Civil/Map 2018 though.

Thanks

Jonathan

[Pointdump]

Jonathan,
You'll definitely need to talk to whoever manages the licenses.
Dave

[ChicagoLooper]

How big is your ecw? Would it be possible to upload a screenshot of your ecw and eww in their Windows folder with their KB size displayed in the screenshot?  

What command or icons are you using to connect to your ecw? The specific prodecure you use may play vital role in the how your ecw is managed.

[jonathan.kwa]

Hi, I have multiple .ecw files totalling 27mb - screenshot attached as requested.  

I use insert image icon via Map 3D as shown below.

[ChicagoLooper]

You're dealing with ecw files which is geospatial imagery. Use the Data Connect palette, not Raster Design. To open the Data Connect palette, enter MAPCONNECT on command line.

Click CONNECT button that looks like a folder. Connect to your ecw folder. See image-1.  All ecw's in the folder will be listed. See image-2.  Select the first 4 by checking the their boxes (do NOT select all the images!). On the Data Connect palette, check the box named Combine into one layer so the images will be seamlessly 'merged' together.  You may give this connection a name. Click the Add to Map button.

Image-1Image-2

Notes:

• The native coordinate system given to the ecw by its author will be displayed in the Data Connect palette (refer to image-2). Respect this coordinate system.
• Assign a coordinate system to modelspace. If you don't assign one, you'll have issues. The coordinate system you assign to modelspace does NOT have to be the same as the native coordinate system of the ecw. If it's different the image's native coordsys, it's OK. Map3D will transform the image coordsys to your map's coordsys.
• Do not attach more than four images. This is merely an experiment to see whether the images can appear in your drawing. If you want to attach more, you can go back and do that later.
• Verify the native coordinate system given to the ecw is accurate, You should know what coordsys the author gave to his image. You need to know so you can verify AutoCad is reading it correctly. If you guess the Coordsys, and it's wrong, you'll have issues. If  you determine Autocad has read the image's coordsys wrong, you'll need to edit it.
• The coordinate systems in images are not always read correctly by AutoCad and ecw's are no exception. When compared with MAPIINSERT, the Data Connect palette provides a more straightforward way to identify and correct errors with coordinate system errors.
• Many issues with georeferenced images can be corrected when the the issues are accurately identified. There are times, though, when the errors are compounded by user errors. User errors must always be considered especially when world file errors and hardware errors have already been corrected.

[jonathan.kwa]

Thank you for the detailed instructions and notes.  I have tried the MAPCONNECT method and have got it working somewhat, although I can't really see much of an improvement when panning and zooming to be honest.  Also it seems the mapping entity will not display in vanilla 2017 which is what I use for general drafting, where as the MAPIINSERT method did allow the mapping to display.

[braudpat]

Hello

ACAD MAP is a little bit slow with FDO Raster ! ... And faster with Raster inserted by the MAPIINSERT command ...

ECW have to be uncompressed to be used by ACAD, so which size for your ECW file ?

The total of your ECW files (into your DWG project) is only 27 Mb ??

On your PC : which processor ? How much Ram ?

Of course, I imagine that you have the ACAD MAP 2015 Service Pack 2 installed on your MAP 2015 !?

THE HEALTH, Bye, Pat

[jonathan.kwa]

Hi

---

ECW have to be uncompressed to be used by ACAD, so which size for your ECW file ? Please see attached for file sizes.

The total of your ECW files (into your DWG project) is only 27 Mb ?? Yes

On your PC : which processor ? How much Ram ? see below

Of course, I imagine that you have the ACAD MAP 2015 Service Pack 2 installed on your MAP 2015 !?

I have Civil 3D 2018 (which includes Map 3D).  Not sure about service pack, maybe there's a clue here:

THE HEALTH, Bye, Pat

---

[braudpat]

Hello

1) For CIVIL part, you need the ACAD CIVIL 2018.3.2 Update !

2) For ACAD part, you need the ACAD 2018.1.2 Update !

3) For MAP part, you need the ACAD MAP 2018.0.1 Update !

Your XEON is OLD and SLOW !

OK for your ECW files, the total is very "low" !

I am using sometimes 10-40 Gb ECW files, BUT there are inserted with the MAPIINSERT command !

THE HEALTH, Bye, Patrice