PERFORMANCE:

Is 7 hours and 28 minutes too long for a drawing with a View and a
Section view?

1. Drop in top view of assembly (about 3,000 parts).
2. Section the assembly in half. Select some subassemblies to not be
included in the section cut.
3. Flip the section view
4. Rescale the section view.

In all I think I did about 5 mouse clicks and this is on a fast
machine with plenty of RAM.

The assembly will rebuild in under 2 seconds (under 120 with
SuperRebuild Macro).

What is different about this assembly from most is the large variation
in scale throughout. The largest dimensions are on the order of 28M
while the smallest are 3mm.

TOP

 

DISCLAIMER: BOB Z. REDNECK ANSWER COMING!!!
:~)>

oh hell yes, that is way too long! if bob z. has to wait on something
for more than half a second, it is way too long.
:~)>

bob z.

 

Is that why those wives are always complaining?

 

One thing I have found is that using Section Scope in a Section View
can have a huge impact on rebuild times, on the order of ten times
for my assembly of 2000+ parts. Using an assembly cut with scope on
the other hand can reduce the time to create a section by a factor of
four.

Also, having interference in the assembly can increase the time for a
drawing to cut a section. I my case removing the interference reduces
rebuild time by a factor of three.


Overall, from the original assembly drawing with inteferenece and
scope used in the section view to using an assembly cut (create the
section in assembly, not drawing) and removing the interference
reduces rebuild time for the drawing by a factor of 50 times. This,
theoretically, should reduce my drawing rebuild time to about 8 1/2
minutes for the same operations as previously noted by way of a
workaround. But I will have to hand draw assembly arrows, etc.

TOP

 

I'm still not there yet. When I use an assembly cut-extrude I still
have to select the items I don't want cut. Selecting through so many
other entities is giving SW fits. Especially hard to select are
helical surfaces. And SW random transparency sometimes gets in the way
too.

TOP

 

Is it possible to create the assembly cut in an exploded view? That might
be easier than endless "select other".

 

I've just started hiding subassemblies to weed out what I don't want.
I tried using an envelope, but this can be awkward in this situation.
One interesting observation is that an assembly cut will cut envelopes
in sub-assemblies.

The selections possible in configuration manager just don't offer the
flexibility that I need either.

I don't know if the trouble I have selecting is because of the
graphics card/driver combination or SW just bogging down when so many
objects are in it's "field of view".

One stinker when doing an assembly cut is that you have to pick
components (parts) not the subassemblies that contain them. It would
be so much simpler if that were the case. It would also be simpler if
folders had a bit more meaning to selections.

TOP

 

I do hope you have the ear of someone who can do something about large
assembly performance.

In the mean time, would it be worth the time investment to write a macro to
create the cuts programmatically? Or at least to help build the selection
sets? I have had at least one instance where a task was so tediously time
consuming that the time spent coding the macro (even with my feeble skills)
was recovered in the first use of the macro!

 

I agree that there needs to be more guidance from SolidWorks and tools
specifically, possibly in a toolbar, that let you make appropriate
choices and use of tools and settings to speed operations that involve
sections even in small assemblies.

The worst for me, as I do not make "large" assemblies is that even in
something with 10-50 parts, when I go to make a section in some of
those assemblies, it will give an error message saying it can't do the
section because of some anomoly (I forget the exact message).

My work around is to move the section plane slightly or dig through
parts to try to find a model that has some sliver somewhere causing a
problem. In other words, some "smarts" in the error message, like
"The "diaphragm.sldprt" can not be sectioned" would be of immense
help, because then I could concentrate on which part has the
problem.

Right now, if it won't section, there is no real feedback/help from
SolidWorks. We need better error notes built into SWks.

Thanks - Bo

 

Bo,
I have seen this problem when a section line ends up tangent to a
cylindrical surface in the assembly. SWX doesn't mind the slivers near as
much as the tangents.


Mike

 

Actually, Dale, the large assembly performance isn't all that bad, at
least not since I started fixing the sub-assemblies and mates. They
used to use this model as a benchmark here till I "fixed" it (or most
of it). Top level rebuilds are under two seconds and full rebuilds are
under two minutes using the SuperRebuild macro. It is in the drawings
where I am getting pummelled. SWX has had the original assembly and
the drawings for over a year now and I haven't heard a peep from
them. I don't really have the time to do all this fixing up and
research into what is works and doesn't except by necessity.

As is often the case the user is as much a factor as the software and
hardware. But it shouldn't be so easy to screw things up.

I'll get the components selected too.

The final solution may very well be to export the views into ACAD and
finish there. That is what we do for General Arrangements most of the
time anyway.

TOP

 

I agree, in that sometimes I want a section plane through two of the
axes of generally round features with many details on them so I can
evaluate the geometry in between the features and so I put a plane
between the axes.

Sometimes it just won't cut it, to coin a phrase.

Bo

 

Sections will fail if it would create zero-thickness geometry.

WT

 

I don't think the problem at hand is with tangent sections. Otherwise
the assembly would have trouble cutting the same section. And the
geometry that I am trying to cut doesn't have cylinders oriented in a
way that could cause this problem.

My hypothesis is that when SW does a section with the scope dialog
populated it has to traverse up and down all the subassembly trees
many times in order to make sure it has cut or not cut the section.

TOP

 

AutoCAD!!!

Tut tut, dirty word!!!!

Straight to the head master's office, BOY!

lol

 

Lessons Learned:

1. Don't use scope when cutting sections of large assemblies in
drawings. Do it in the assembly with configs and cut-extrude.

2. Using the section view in an assembly can increase top level
rebuild time by a factor of 50.

3. In complex drawings hide everything but what you are working on at
the moment.

4. In complex drawings set the line font to thin and set the graphics
performance for wireframe to fast.

So we have two very handy features in SW that need some work to be
usable with large assemblies.

And for some strange reason the one sheet drawing I attempted Friday
without success because of rebuild time and crashes went like a breeze
this morning. I have no explanation for this.

TOP

 

I would say this is a really fast machine, but it is not. It shows a
problem with SPECapc properly timing results for the graphics card.

SolidWorks 2007 Workstation Benchmark
User Name : xxx
Computer Name: xxx
Manufacturer :ASUS
Model : K8V.
OS : Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS SP : Service Pack 2
CPU : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+
# of CPU : 2
Memory : 2047
Graphics : Nvidia Quadro4 900XGL

**** Overall Test Results ****
Note: All results are in seconds.
Lower scores are better.

Test Number 1
Test Total = 141.8
Graphics = 3.97
CPU = 60.89
I/O = 76.94

Test Number 2
Test Total = 141.36
Graphics = 4.59
CPU = 60.94
I/O = 75.83

Test Number 3
Test Total = 140.25
Graphics = 4.63
CPU = 59.99
I/O = 75.63

Test Number 4
Test Total = 141.69
Graphics = 4.25
CPU = 60.94
I/O = 76.5

Test Number 5
Test Total = 141.54
Graphics = 4.19
CPU = 60.78
I/O = 76.57

Test Averages for 5 tests(s).
Test Total = 141.33
Graphics = 4.33
CPU = 60.71
I/O = 76.29