Featurelines/gradings making computer go slow?

[Anonymous]

Hi Guys,

I'm having an unusual issue I've never had before: using feature lines and creating new gradings is making the computer go really slowly. When I first open up the drawing for the day and create a feature line, the first one is created fine - no problem. Any feature line or grading after that and it takes the computer about 30 sec to let me put down each point for a featureline, and usually a little bit longer for a grading (even quitting out of the command takes about 30 sec). Has anyone else had this issue? I've tried running purge, audit, mapclean, recover, and also tried inserting the model into a new dwg as a block (which didn't work - I think the model must be too big). Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Regards,

Lachlan

[jmayo-EE]

How many verticies does the Fline contain. Very large numbers (+/-4 digits and more) can slow C3D down significantly. If this is the case does performance improve after weeding the fline?

Also note that gradings have not been the most stable feature. From 07 to this day I create gradings reluctantly, explode them to get 3d polys for modeling, delete the grading site and recreate it if I need.

[Anonymous]

Hi John,

Thanks again for your help :). Yes, I have many flines in the model, some with quite a number of verticies. Rookie question: would you in most cases prefer to calc levels by hand and create plines to turn into breaklines? Or would you use the grading option to do your calcs and then do as you said and explode to 3d plines?

Regards,

Lachlan

[jmayo-EE]

I let C3D do my calcs. 🙂 With flines I use the 2d to 3d approach. Give me the 2d layout and I will assign elev's. I typically begin with floor elevations at work outward using the fline tools to set grades to the bld grade line, walks, curbs etc going outward towards my desired low points and then tie into the EG.

[Anonymous]

So no infill grades/any grades generally? I'm working on a 20+ hectare subdivision, with about 14 swales, 2 detention basins and 2 bioretention basins, and have the site constructed pretty much entirely of feature lines + infill gradings/gradings (plus 5 roads) - is this a bad idea? My process hitherto has been to get a 2d layout i.e. for a house pad, make a feature line and assign elevations, infill grade the pad, then tie in to natural or other parts of the model by either more infill grades of grading to the EG. 

[Anonymous]

Sorry, my last post was an aside from my main question - I think I have partly discovered the culprit of why the program's going slow slow - saving, not feature lines! So, when I start the program in the morning, I can create feature lines, assign elevations to them, grading them etc. and all is good.. BUT as soon as I save, everything goes much slower, it now takes about 1 1/2 minutes between each command (even quitting out of a command). Still can't figure out why saving would cause the program to slow... It's a really annoying problem as I save fairly frequently.

[jmayo-EE]

You said  you use infills often so let's confirm you don't have other issues with the file. Gradings have not been the most reliable feature of this program. Open it and select nothing. Right-click in an empty area of model space and choose Quick Select from the menu. Click the dropdown list to display the list of all the objects in the file. Do you notice a large number of parcels that you have not created? If so the gradings are probably creating these and this could be the culprit.

[jmayo-EE · Accepted solution]

I use infills very rarely. If I have feature lines for everything I am constructing I simply place them in a surface as breaklines. No infills required.

[jmayo-EE]

Are you working on a network or saving to a flash drive?

If so see if things improve saving to the local hard drive.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, its showing 22 parcels (which I did not create). I tried deleting them, but they reappeared when I rebuilt the model. Any idea what I should do? Your help has been much appreciated 🙂

Regards,

Lachlan

[Anonymous]

I'm saving to a local server, and I've also tried saving to my SSD, but no joy 😞

[Anonymous]

Hi John,

You're a legend! Your tip on breaklines worked a treat - problems gone, and my model now now rebuilds significantly faster. 

Keep up the great mentoring 🙂

Regards,

Lachlan

[jmayo-EE]

Thx, HTH. You should confirm that the phantom parcels are not in your company template.

Be well.