Selecting points and Scan Regions are very slow

[Chad-Smith]

I'm experiencing a great deal of slowness with regards to selecting points and then assigning them to Scan Regions.

It was fast at first, but the more Scan Regions I created, the slower it got.

I only have 5 scan regions, but as I try and select some more points to move onto existing scan regions, the system just hangs.

It maxes out the CPU resources, but the RAM sits steady. It's like it is trying to select the points, but just can't.

[Patrick_Aps_9121]

Hi Brian,

Have you even tried to define them in the newest 3.2 version of Recap ?

I have quite good expericene with it when importing Regions from a CSV file, so that defining them is also very easy.

The only limitation is that you can have no more than 60 regions I believe, so I have to stick with a region per floor.

If only Navisworks would enable loading the cloud per regions, Then I would not have to export unified the regions any more in Recap.

[brian]

You caught me.  I haven't.  I did see that it wasn't fixed in 3.0 a month ago.  I apologize for my skepticism that it's been fixed with a .X release after three years.  If you're telling me it's been fixed I'll give it a shot.

I'm not sure what you mean by importing regions from a .csv file.  My understanding is that we are supposed to be able to assign regions from selections in Recap. 

[mmeade2]

Agreed ...I had all but given up hope, will have to try again.

[brian]

Not fixed enough for me to recommend it to a client.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a73F2K1KK4

[Patrick_Aps_9121]

No, I was not pleased that you needed to select something to define Regions.

I wanted to define Regions based on Floor levels and/or building Axes, having known coordinates.

You can do that now by importing Regions and choose a CSV file having a region definition per line.

Region_name, Xmin, Ymin, Zmin, Xmax, Ymax, Zmax.

It's quite easy to make it using an spreadsheet, so that you avoid overlaps in your regions.

Once Created, I find that switching Regions Visibility on and off reacts fast enough, also in Autocad that appends the Recap Project as a reference.

[Chad-Smith]

Just installed a trial of v4.0 to test this out in the hope it was fixed.

Nope. This Scan Region slowness still exists.

This is coming up to almost 4 years since the original post. Should we just give up on Scan Regions ever being fixed?

[ashwini.murthy]

Hi Chad,

There has been several performance improvements for region creation + navigation in 4.0. Could you tell us some details about your project:

1. What is the size of your project?

2. Were the regions created in 4.0 or earlier versions? 

3. How many total regions are on this project?

4. Would you be willing to share your RCP (Just the RCP, we don't need the scans/support folder). If yes, I can set up a shared box folder with you.

Thanks,

Ashwini

[vidanom]

Hi @ashwini.murthy,

I believe regions created in previous versions will not have a big effect in 4.0, right?

However the performance should be faster when creating new regions from the beginning.

[Chad-Smith]

The test from my last post was with a new project created in 4.0.

It was also using the small 2 scan Techshop example that came with ReCap.

I created only 4 scan regions. Everything seemed to be going fine until I saved, closed the project, and reopened. That is when the slowness returned.

[ashwini.murthy]

Thanks for the details. I did a few tests on Techshop sample as well, but don't see that much of slowness. There could be differences in the type of regions you and I are creating. 

Do you mind sharing just the RCP file from the Techshop/your project on which you are experiencing slowness. 

Few other questions: What is the configuration of your machine, RAM, graphics card? Are you loading the project from an external/USB drive?

Thanks,

Ashwini

[Chad-Smith]

RCP file attached.

Takes about 5 minutes to open, when it should only take a few seconds.

[yan.fu]

Hi @Chad-Smith,

Thank you for sharing your project.

We can reproduce the performance issue you are experiencing with this project you shared. We feel sorry for it. The loading performance needs to be further improved. 

However, we have some small tips on how to improve the performance when editing the projects:

1. Use more regions instead of putting a lot of selections into one region. The performance majorly depends on how many selections you have made instead of how many regions you have. Splitting big regions into smaller ones will help to improve the performance especially when you want to lock / hide that region, i.e. make regions to be locked / hidden contain fewer selections. 

2. Although plane selection is very useful to select points, it scarifies some performance since plane bound can be as big as project bound, which spans more area compared with using rectangle selection with limited bounding box. 

3. Keeping your selection as tight as possible to include only the points you want to select also helps to improve performance.

4. Use clip tool to aid your editing process when you want to temporary hide something. 

Thanks,

Yan

[Rbrown251]

Problem solved. Not available in free 4.0 version.

[Chad-Smith]

How is it that after over 5 years later this is still not fixed? I am on version 5.0.2.41.

Why is it that a feature which is essentially layering cannot perform effectively? If you cannot make this feature work correctly then it is better off being removed from the product.

Since the first post, there have been numerous other similar posts describing the same poor performance.

[industrialsniper]

Reporting from the point cloud frontier since 2001. Whether these problems are manifesting in AutoCAD or ReCap console itself?  Offering an alternate or, for all we know a universal workaround tactic; to minimize time spent preparing point cloud in the ReCap App due to it's long development curve. We elected to concentrate efforts in AutoCAD treating the point cloud as the native object that it is supposed to be. We manage it by "bylayer" control. (Point Cloud Stylization = "Object Color" for intuitive color mapping by layer assignment & Visual Style = 3D wireframe)  Then copy as many instances of the cloud inside AutoCAD assigning each to it's designated layer (just like instances of blocks), cropping each instance as a unique entity.  Each new instance is tracked inside the Point Cloud Manager console (inside AutoCAD) - we rename the instance by the same name as the layer assignment.  The cropped region or combinations thereof are often nothing more than a check plot cross-section shown in the background of a paperspace layout isolating by layer control only the applicable cropped region. This allows us to focus our layout development resources close-coupled between point cloud in tandem with both discrete modeling of existing mission critical features AND the new layout in 3-D.  An improvement that remains outstanding is providing re-sizing of the cropped point by simply hot-gripping the boundaries.  This functionality that Ambercore afforded in the now deprecated *.PCG format - would be in keeping with the way AutoCAD has always allowed resize of other attachments to be clipped (blocks & images). Hope this helps in the interim while we continue among the cloud of witnesses thwarted as this product wants to be a competitive industrial solution.  

[Chad-Smith]

Now on version 5.0.3.58 and the Scan Region performance seems to be worse than ever.

[industrialsniper]

Hi Chad;

This may be a tiring topic for you but we would be interested in your response as we are caught too in the flux of the software tool-chain being imposed upon us. 

1) Are you handling your Scan Regions within the ReCap console or while plugged in inside other Autodesk platforms such as AutoCAD, Revit etc using the Point Cloud Manager ... Note in the screen capture below that Regions are not on.  These "pseudo-regions" are created within AutoCAD by clipping / hiding operations on multiple instances of the same single point cloud xreferenced rcs / rcp file:

2) If you are handling the Scan Regions only within ReCap is this because you are doing it once there so that you don't have to re-iterate the process inside multiple platforms (say AutoCAD & Revit) to create your design product derivatives thereafter?

3) Did the suggestion in my last post make ANY sense?

4) We are not Revit users so haven't apprehended whether the same paradigm exists for clipping / hiding treatment using the xreference technique.

Thanks.

jp

[Chad-Smith]

My point cloud preparation is purely for linking into Revit.

I would like to do all the work in ReCap for various reasons. But the main reason is for point organisation, and this relies on the Scan Regions tool working correctly.

In ReCap:

1. All scans are registered.
2. All points not within the scope of works are either cropped or deleted.
3. I would then like to place points on Scan Regions for various discipline elements, like Walls & Floors, Structure, and Services, to name a few.
4. Each scan region is exported as individual RCS files. This helps decimate and creates individually controllable files in Revit.
5. Then each RCS file is sent to the different discipline teams and linked into their Revit projects.

ReCap is supposed to be a tool for data organisation and preparation. But it fails egregiously in the organisation.

Autodesk, when are you going to fix this?!

[dsmithQYKLQ]

In 2023, still an issue! Having to export scan regions periodically is not the long term solution. I am trying to make a vegetation layer and I cant even hardly open the program without it freezing.  What is the suggested workflow for exporting regions to rcs and importing them back in?  I am not finished creating a layer to a point that Im ready to export. (This is the suggested method I have found on the Autodesk website).  

[gbouvard]

2023.1  still still useless region, any alternative ?