Slow Performance

[FrancisLillie]

I purchased the software a couple of days ago fter trialling it on some small DWG's and being quite happy by the speed of it. It was purchased with a view to converting some large DWG's.

Now, when trying to convert large files I have a few issues, none of which appear to be show stoppers as such, but are frustrating nonetheless.

Firstly, when I navigate to the directory where the DWG's reside, and click on one it takes nearly 20 minutes to bring up the extents of the file before I can click on any of the conversion options. I thought this was because they were on a network drive, but I get exactly the same results when they are local.

Secondly, when I create either a polyline, polygon or text SHP set from a file I monitor the output folder and see the files appear after about an hour of processing for a 54Mb file, longer for the larger files. Now sometimes the application returns and I can choose another file or try and convert to another type. Other times the application will seemingly lock up and not return to normal usage. I even left it 12 hours with no response. If I kill the task and open the SHP files in ArcExplorer they seem fine. Is this a known problem?

Thirdly is the speed issue. If the application returned to normal use after converting this wouldn't be an issue as such, but because I can never be certain in my mind if the conversion has succeeded I have to keep a close eye on what's going on. I need all the layers with the DWG converted and I also need to keep the number of files down to a minimum, so converting half the layers in one run and half in another is not an option. Is the time taken to convert larger files a know problem?

I look forward to hearing from someone in the near future on this.

[GuthCAD Software Support]

Hi Francis,

re.
Firstly, when I navigate to the directory where the DWG's reside, and click on one it takes nearly 20 minutes to bring up the extents of the file before I can click on any of the conversion options. I thought this was because they were on a network drive, but I get exactly the same results when they are local. This will be resolved hopefully in a software update at the end of the week.

Is the time taken to convert larger files a know problem?
Unfortunately it is known problem for large DWGs. :( It will resolved in the next major version upgrade either late December or in the New Year. (Free to you.) Currently the only very partial workarounds are:
- have as much memory as you can on your machine
- sometimes DWG's are bloated with old unused data, that can be purged in AutoCAD using the PURGE command, thus reducing the file size of the DWG.

regards,
Software Support

[FrancisLillie]

Thanks for the reply.

The 18 large DWG's I had were created by merging 6,000 odd smaller DWG's together to make it easier to handle in terms of the number of files. In the end I bit the bullet and used the command line to batch convert all 6,000 odd files, which gave me over 36,000 files. It just creates more admin work for me to handle them.

The shapefiles are going on a handheld device for an on site application and to be honest using smaller files forces me to better organise the data so it's no great hardship on this job. On future jobs it would be handy though, so any updates would be good.

Regards,
Francis Lillie