One humongous block - inserted once.

My question - should you choose to answer it - is, does this effectively
increase the size of the drawing file by ~2X?

Basic assumptions:
Drawing is mostly empty, except for the block.
Biggest thing in it, by far, is the block.
Assume it contains ~100,000 objects - so it's a big honker.

Just wondering if I've got my head on straight or not...

 

Well,
Let's see. You have the 'block' table definition, and (1) insert.
Probably is ~2X the 'byte' count of just the 'block' drawing.

Bob

 

I justs made a new drawing, inserted the houseplan from the samples
sub-directory as a block. 604k when I saved it.

Exploded the block, purge purge purge, save again. 498k save file.

So I don't think it's quite ~2X. :O)

One place I worked the guys would draw in modelspace full scale. When
they were done and checked they would scale the drawing down to its plot
scale, then turn it into a block and then save it. They said it made
drawings smaller, I say it made a giant mess.


Have fun,
Dave

 

No. There's practically no data in the insert object, it's all in table entry. Explode the block and it will double -- table entry plus individual entities. Purge out the block and it will be back down to about the same size again.

 

I don't think it does. It's been a very long time, but way back in August
of 1991, under Release 11, I did some comparison of file sizes with
lines-vs.-polylines, un-blocked elements vs. blocks inserted, separate block
insertions vs. minsert, insertion vs. xref, etc., AND (wonder of wonders) I
actually was able to lay my hands on it! Here's what I found then, though
it probably isn't quite the same now:

A block DEFINITION took the memory of the pieces it was made up of, plus 83
bytes, plus one byte per character in the name of the block.

A block INSERTION took 28 bytes, plus 8 bytes each for any scale factor that
wasn't 1 or for the rotation angle if it wasn't zero.

So if you defined a bunch of stuff into a block, and deleted the original
stuff, and inserted the block once, it took a hundred and a few bytes more
than if you just had the same stuff not defined as a block (depending on the
size of the block name, and the scales and rotation). It didn't seem to
matter how big the block was, so for any but the very smallest of blocks, if
you inserted it even twice, you'd save memory. But for a very large block
definition, yes, you'd use more memory, but not enough to worry about. (You
might have worried about it more back then, with slower computers and
smaller storage capacities.)

It would be easy enough to test, but making a copy of the drawing, exploding
the block in it, and purging the block definition, then comparing file
sizes.

Kent Cooper, AIA


...

 

Not quite 2X, there is data that will be in the drawing no matter what that is not contained in the table entry data.

 

David,
Your question does not contain enough information to answer it.
What kind of objects does the block contain? (Regular ACAD
objects, solid objects, ADT objects, LandCADD objects, other
custom objects)
In ADT objects, proxy objects in some display configurations can
greatly increase the size. All sorts of strange things can happen
with custom objects and dictionaries.

Has this block got a ton of attributes? ;-) Each attribute is stored
separately.

Was the measurment of initial drawing size before or after the initial
insert? An empty drawing could easily have its size doubled after
insertion.

Regards,
Doug

 

Doug,

Basically, I was just trying to get my facts straight before I started
spouting off on some evil drafting practice I just plain don't like that
really wasn't my problem to begin with...

Actually one of the smarter things I did today, (posting here first), 'cuz
everyone here stopped me before I REALLY made a fool of myself! Thanks,
fellas! <waving>

I realize block thingys can get really complex, but I was not really
referring to anything more than a mess of regular ACAD Objects.

Still, I wish the evidence had pointed the way I wanted, since I REALLY
DIDN'T like how they were using AutoCAD. Made me sore, it did!...

(Hmmm, 'tons of attributes'... Good point. Wonder if they'd've been able
to see through that smoke screen? Yeah, probably. Crumb.)

 

That is so funny. Why would one think that?