C3D hangs, crashes, or simply stops responding, even on simple tasks

[ivanhyphae]

Hi folks,

I have been learning C3D and finding it very frustrating how unstable the software seems to be. There are certain processes that seem especially prone to failure. Updating grading objects, for example, often leads to a crash. The error is usually a memory issue, access violation or whatnot.

I am now starting a project from scratch, and trying to create and existing ground surface from contours. If I do it with only the major contours, it makes the surface OK, but using all the contours left the program not responding. The resource monitor will say, for example, Not Responding, 119 threads active, 13% cpu activity, and it will just sit there like that even when I go to lunch and come back an hour later. Just now it froze when I used the view hot spot to switch back to the top view. It rotated and then just quit responding.

I am having the same sort of issues whether I work on my personal computer or the workstation here in the office that has a Quadro graphics card in it. 

Obviously this is very frustrating. How can I get C3D to stop crashing all the time? I'm wasting huge amounts of time, and obviously that's not sustainable.

Thanks!

Ivan

[Civil3DReminders_com · Accepted solution]

 So if I had a line with two points and I wanted to count the number of vertices I could probably do that really quickly. If I add verticices at every 5 feet along then line and tried to count all of them it's going to take me longer to count all of the vertices. If I take those lines and create a surface and try to count all of the vertices I have to take twice as long since I have to count the original number plus those added to the surface. This takes a lot of processing power and makes things take longer.

In your drawing you have contours that have lots of vertices. You can weed the polylines to make less vertices and have better performance. Even better would be to go get the original survey data and build the surface from that. Polylines for a surface are a horrible choice for both drawing performance and accuracy.

For grading objects I keep them in the drawing as long as I need them. To get the data I extract the surface from the gradings. Then I delete the gradings. This way I don't have to worry about them sticking around. I then paste the surfaces together to get a finish grade surface.

[g_k50]

This could be a couple of things besides the AutoCAD program.  Are you doing this over a network?  Try saving the file to your local C: Drive.  Is your CPU being over worked?  That might involve getting a better computer.  Is your memory being taxed, do you have enough memory?  

You might try to have all your surface above Zero.  and all the XY coordinates above Zero also.

[BushW]

Hi @ivanhyphae

I am checking in to see if you need more help with your problem with Civil 3D hanging, crashing and only stopping on a simple task?

Did @Civil3DReminders_com and @g_k50 posts assist in resolving your issue with the great suggestions? 

Please add a post with how you decide to proceed and your results so, other Community members may benefit.

Please hit the ‘Accept as Solution’ button if a post or posts solve your issue or answer your question.

Here to help and thank you for doing so.

[ivanhyphae]

Thanks for all your thoughts and ideas, folks.

It seems that the answer is just, 'don't do that'.

Fair enough. I am used to running a Delaunay triangulation in Grasshopper on many more points, so I expected that a thousand or a few thousand vertices wouldn't be such a big deal. Apparently, it is.

I think the more important lesson here is, I am still learning best practices in C3D, and what I attempted to do is not really the best practice.

[dgorsman]

Not familiar with Grasshopper; I suspect that it's more model-oriented than data-oriented as Civil3D is.  The program pushes around a *lot* of data (not just point coordinates) so keeping things well organized is important.  That includes knowing how much detail is important and how much can be simplified (e.g. we had a surface model several hundred meters per side, with many triangle edges single-digit millimeters in length, which crashed even high-end computers).  If Grasshopper is only dealing with coordinates then it may be working as a multi-threaded operation too.

Additionally, graphics card doesn't really matter for this specific instance.  RAM is what's important, if you're maxing that out (don't think you mentioned what you have) then paging to the hard drive will certainly lock up the computer.

[AllenJessup]

You might also make sure you have the Civil 3D Performance Hotfix installed.

[ivanhyphae]

Thanks for the additional thoughts.

You're right that GH is more model oriented. I guess what surprised me was that I was starting with a completely empty file when I tried to make a surface from contours. That doesn't sound, on the face of it, to be a particularly data heavy operation.

Unfortunately, the survey file I was provided does not include any COGO points -- it has blocks where the points used to be containing two lines forming an X. I would love to build my surface from only the appropriate points, but unfortunately, the surveyor was fired and I cannot get their original model. Any further suggestions?

Thanks for turning me onto the hotfix. I will install that and see what performance gains I reap.

~i

[AllenJessup]

If your text is a standard distance from the crossed lines (X) marking the point. You can make a copy of the drawing and move the text so the insertion point is at the X. Then use the Move Text to Elevation command. Then create the surface from the text.

You'll probably have to create some breaklines from the lines in the 2D drawing.