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UNEXPECTED LARGE FILE SIZE

UNEXPECTED LARGE FILE SIZE

UNEXPECTED LARGE FILE SIZE

(OP)
I've created a file of a tire.  It is 1.07 in diameter, so it's fairly small.  It has some circular patterns of spokes, a circular pattern of some holes in the hub and a circular pattern of treads. I built it as a half tire, and mirrored it to create the completed tire.  When I saved the file to create an STL file, I was surprised to see the file size at over 9 megs.  The part file size is at 11 megs.  Any suggestions as to why this file size might be so large.....?? Are there any settings that would allow me to reduce the file size?

Thanks in advance.

John

RE: UNEXPECTED LARGE FILE SIZE

What version of SWx are you running & what are the computer specs?  That seems rather large for such a small part.

Best Regards,

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SW2005 SP 5.0 & Pro/E 2001
Dell Precision 370
P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
XP Pro SP2.0
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400
      o
  _`\(,_
(_)/ (_)

Never argue with an idiot. They'll bring you down to their level and beat you with experience every time.

RE: UNEXPECTED LARGE FILE SIZE

Yes.  The STL file converts your smooth surface into triangles.  It sounds like you saved your file with fairly high resolution, plus you have lots of continuously-changing surfaces (not much is flat).  This makes for lots of triangles to imitate your SolidWorks file's surfaces.

The good thing about STL files is that they Zip down very small--so that same file might crunch down to ~1.5MB - 2.5MB to send by email.

You don't want to dumb down your triangle count too much, or you'll get poor parts from prototyping.  When I export to STL, I hit Save As, name the file, and hit the Options button before exporting to check the resolution settings.  I normally place the Deviation tolerance about mid-way across on the bar and use about 8 degrees of angle tolerance.  This gives me great prototype parts and quality seems to be of diminishing return in proportion to file size beyond these settings.

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reason trumps all.  And awe trumps reason.

RE: UNEXPECTED LARGE FILE SIZE

Go to Tools > Feature Statistics and you will see the breakdown of what takes the most time to rebuild your parts.  Most likely it is the patterns.  On your patterns, toggle the "Geometry patterns" under options to see which reduces your overall time.  This may or may not decrease the file size.  Also run Ecosqueeze and see if that helps.

Flores

RE: UNEXPECTED LARGE FILE SIZE

(OP)
Heckler... I'm running 2007, sp1 on a @Xi computer, 2 gigs ram...and yes.. my thoughts also, the file size seems huge for such a small part.

Jeff... the part file size is what is huge (even before saving as STL)... I also go into options when saving as STL as this is where you can play with the resolution settings...)....  I just was really surprised at the part file size.

SMcadman... I'll check your suggestions.

Thanks all...

RE: UNEXPECTED LARGE FILE SIZE

Oh, right.  Yeah, that's way too huge for a SW part.  (How do you like the Xi system?  Not bad, eh?)

Such simple circular patterns like that shouldn't be a big deal.

I wonder if this goes back to the file shrinking problem between SW and Microsoft.  There was a patch that CorBlimeyLimey posted about a while back.  I believe he's had some success with that reducing file size, even though the original Microsoft patch was botched and awaiting another patch.  Anyway, SP 1 was supposed to work in conjunction with the Microsoft patch to bring native SW file sized down somewhat dramatically.

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reason trumps all.  And awe trumps reason.

RE: UNEXPECTED LARGE FILE SIZE

(OP)
SMCADMAN.... I checked out the Feature Statistics... and yes, the patterns are taking the most time to build.  There are two circular patterns and the tread pattern that take a lot of time compared with all the other features.  When you say "toggle the "Geometry patterns" under options to see which reduces your overall time".... could be a more specific about what you mean.  I went into options, but didn't really see anything regarding your comment.

Thanks

RE: UNEXPECTED LARGE FILE SIZE

"It's not the size that counts ... it's what you do with it" smile

I don't think the models "physical" size has much to do with file size. It's the quantity and complexity of features involved which adds bytes.

cheers

RE: UNEXPECTED LARGE FILE SIZE

Sorry for the confusion.  Right-click the pattern > Edit Feature.  The bottom panel is where the Options is.
http://www.paul-flores.com/solidworks_screenshots/geometry_pattern.jpg

Quote (SOLIDWORKS):

Geometry pattern. Creates the pattern using only the geometry (faces and edges) of the features, rather than patterning and solving each instance of the features. The Geometry Pattern option speeds up the creation and rebuilding of the pattern.

SW07 SP1.0

Flores

RE: UNEXPECTED LARGE FILE SIZE

The physical size of the file does affect the number of triangles in the STL file (and hence, file size), but shouldn't affect the original SW part at all.

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reason trumps all.  And awe trumps reason.

RE: UNEXPECTED LARGE FILE SIZE

(OP)
well... this particular part is very wierd.  I went back and made sure all the sketches were fully defined, I played with toggling the patterns (geometry pattern or not)... the file size is huge, the last "save" was up to 14 megs! I check the feature statisics... Every time I make a change and I expect the file size to decrease, it does the opposite.  Could be just one of those wierd parts. I know there have been some posts on file sizes... I'll go back and see if there's any help there.

Thanks all for the suggestions.

 

RE: UNEXPECTED LARGE FILE SIZE

Have you tried a CTRL-Q rebuild, just to see if that changes things?

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reason trumps all.  And awe trumps reason.

RE: UNEXPECTED LARGE FILE SIZE

Large file size can also be contributed to file corruption... also complexity of the model.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376

RE: UNEXPECTED LARGE FILE SIZE

Your actual SolidWorks file size may be affected by "File Shadowing".  File shadowing is a windows term for how it stores information in a file.  File size can very greatly from one save to the next because of this.  Files may not only increase in size but may also decrease depending.  Try a "save as" on your part.  This often cleans out a lot of the shadowing information and will make your original file considerably smaller.

ColeM CSWP

RE: UNEXPECTED LARGE FILE SIZE

Are you using configurations? Each config added can really increase the file size as it stores a solid body for each config you rebuild.

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2006 SP5.0 on WinXP SP2

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