topic Re: Ballooning Design File Size in Fusion Support Forum

Ballooning Design File Size

iandaltonDWUKP — Sat, 01 Jul 2023 22:52:44 GMT

I have been having major debilitating issues with Fusion lately and on my quest to fix the issue, I came across an observation that might be telling.

The files I am having issues with are all extremely big when exported into the F3D format compared other files of similar, or more complex, design. I am only having issues after the latest F360 update to version: 2.0.16490 with new files I create after that update.

Here are some examples I have used for comparison:

Problem file created yesterday: 40 current bodies, 75 current sketches, 2500 timeline entries = 118mb file

Control file 1 created in 2022: 80 current bodies, 178 current sketches ,6000 timeline entries = 37mb file

Control File 2 created in 2021: 251 current bodies, 116 current sketches, 7800 timeline entries = 72mb file

Is this concerning at all? Is this is known bug? Are any known fixes?

Re: Ballooning Design File Size

jeff_strater — Sun, 02 Jul 2023 02:25:46 GMT

I am not aware of any bugs that would cause this. File size is affected by many factors, including the complexity of the geometry involved, and your workflow. Some features create "geometry caches" so that they can continue to compute even if there are errors. For instance: Combine caches all the tool bodies used. If you have lots of Combines, and the tool bodies for those features are complex, that can add to file size. It's not the only cause, just an example. What happens if you save a copy of that design, and turn off design history? Does the file size come down?

Re: Ballooning Design File Size

iandaltonDWUKP — Sun, 02 Jul 2023 03:15:33 GMT

Thank you for the reply. I did save the file with no history and it is now under 9mb in file size - much more reasonable. By doing that, however, I have 28,902 items in the browser list. These cannot be viewed or modified - the are like phantom features. Additionally, the system freezes if I try to delete one. What is that from?

Re: Ballooning Design File Size

TheCADWhisperer — Sun, 02 Jul 2023 07:59:58 GMT

@iandaltonDWUKP

Can you share a file that exhibits this behavior?

Re: Ballooning Design File Size

jeff_strater — Sun, 02 Jul 2023 16:07:38 GMT

A couple of points:

I don't know if a history-free version will meet your needs or not. I only suggested it to try to determine whether whether my theory about cached bodies being responsible for the file size was correct. It looks like it might be correct, based on your results.
So, the second question is: Is your design workflow good, and the bloat from the cache is just the cost of a good workflow, or are there other ways to achieve the same results with a different workflow?
Is file size is something to be worried about? 118MB is not really that large. Larger file sizes will affect upload/download times, and even save times to some extent, but, if those are not a real problem for you, then I would not be too concerned about file size.
If you are interested converting to a direct modeling design, that can be a valuable way to reduce complexity. Just understand that, once this conversion happens, it reduces your ability to edit the design. If your design is "done", that can be a useful strategy.
" I have 28,902 items in the browser list. These cannot be viewed or modified - the are like phantom features.". That is not too far off the mark, to be honest. Those are "direct modeling features". There is a limited ability to edit these kinds of features. I personally feel that these feature are not worth having, and I wish we would not create them when turning off history. You don't want to delete those features (delete will try to delete the geometry associated with that feature), you want to "dissolve" them (which means: getting rid of the browser entry, but keeping the geometry). You can dissolve as many of them at once, by selecting a range in the browser using shift-click.

Re: Ballooning Design File Size

iandaltonDWUKP — Sun, 02 Jul 2023 20:18:30 GMT

Thank you for the help and explanation. This does fix the issue with absurdly large files sizes due to my (admittedly) poor design habits. I am still having issues where seemingly simple files take an absurdly long time to open and modify, but will be a separate post.

Re: Ballooning Design File Size

louise_rouse — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 14:55:54 GMT

If I interpreted correctly, turning of design history will delete/remove/dissolve the geometry cache of old tool bodies?

If at the time I had used those tool bodies in the combine menu, I had checked the "remove tools" would that have happened during run time?

If I am trying to model some fancy ironwork, let's say a simple version of that is something like this with bevelled curves.:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTG2-20ohKR4kBZM-8cDA8XV8dqgcQFsJqa4A&s

The above would only have two to three z coordinates, but it would have complex x y stroking. Solid modelling for this is already hard enough and results in some weirdness around corners.

When it gets even just a little bit fancier (older ironwork can go so much more ornate than this) things gets intense very quickly

Is fusion just unsuited to modelling this stuff? More creative 3D sculpting software are weaker at hard-edged geometry so it feels like an annoying inbetween problem.

I am ending up with 600mb files per component...

I want to cnc this, not turn it into an animation so that's why I went to fusion.