Huge part file size

[tdx99]

Hello All,


I was asked to look into an issue with apart that an engineer designed. The saved part is 85megs! The part hasabout 100 features. One of my part with about the same number of features is less then10 megs. Both the engineer and Iare fairly new to SW so I couldn't figure out what the problem was.All features weremade from simple extrusions, cuts, patterns, chamfers, rounds. No complicated surfaces and not drafted yet. I did notice that a lot of the extrusion and cut features were created as thins.


I would hate to have to recreate the part.


Any help would be appreciated.


Thank you,


Tua
Edited by: tdx99

 

[design-engine]

you would have to upload the file for someone to take a look

 

[tdx99]

I am having trouble uploading the file here. If anyone is willing to take a look I can email it to you. I've suppressed all features so the file size is only 200k.


-Tua

 

[design-engine]

email me and Ill upload it on our server. [email protected]

Edited by: design-engine

 

[Metoo]

This is a problem in Solidworks; two people can design the same identical part and the two part file sizes can vary widely. If one made lots of changes; rebuilt his model numerous times withmoved features in the tree; added and removed constraints, modified scetches, etc, etc..., that file will grow and grow and grow.


Here's the question - do you really need the feature tree? If its a simple part, then its 10 - 15 minutes to redo. If its a complex part, then the feature tree is worthless anyway; save it out as an iges or parasolid and bring it back in as dumb surface/solid. If you need to make changes to it afterwards, then cut off what isn't needed and add what is. There's nothing mystical or magical about having a feature history with a part model.

 

[tdx99]

Metoo,


Thanks for shedding some light on the problem. We had a design review and quite a few changes were made. Now the file is over 140meg. It takes about a minute to save the darn part now. Is there any way to purge.. or trim the fat off of this thing? It is getting to the point where it would be better to recreate the part.

 

[Metoo]

First; get rid of all the fluff; studio, lighting, background graphics; all the stuff that has nothing to do with the part design. Go to your file options, and check the graphics display resolution to be sure it isn't unreasonably set high, as well as associated setting. When all else fails, remodel the part.


I have noticed that similar files have exhibited a size reduction when opened and saved in next higher version of Solidworks. This recently happened when the company I was contracting for moved from 2007 to 2008.A mold part I was working onsaved in 2008 at about half the size as in 2007. That filealso had numerous changes to it, and I was about to save it out as a parasolid and bring it back in as a dumb model to reduce the size of assembly file before I noticed the part size dropped from about 100 meg to about 55 meg.

 

[ProE_Addict]

I don't recommend "saving out and bring it back in as dumb geometry." At that point you've just spent a lot of time creating your masterpiece only to destroy thebeauty of the parametric software.


If you can, do a File, Save As. This usually does the trick. I believe SW saves a lot of history data within each file. When you do a Save As, that history goes bye-bye and you start fresh.

 

[FireWild]

I had this same problem with a Solid Works Part a few months ago I tried the save as trick and it did not work I even sent it in to Support and they were not able to figure it out either. For the record I've never had this problem with a Pro-e part.

 

[design-engine]

There is probably a surface import in the database.

 

[FireWild]

Nope I checked for that. It's Solid Works vodo I think ;o)
Edited by: FireWild

 

[michael3130]

Here's the question - do you really need the feature tree? If its a simple part, then its 10 - 15 minutes to redo. If its a complex part, then the feature tree is worthless anyway; save it out as an iges or parasolid and bring it back in as dumb surface/solid. If you need to make changes to it afterwards, then cut off what isn't needed and add what is. There's nothing mystical or magical about having a feature history with a part model.

Yes, absolutely you need the feature tree.


If its a complicated part, the feature tree is worthless if you don't know how to model a part properly. Seeting out a plan from the start to build your part, anticipating as best you can changes that may occur in the future and through past experience, a complicated part can be adjusted from the very 1st feature very successfully. It very much comes down to the skill of the CAD user and this is one of the areas that makes the difference between someone who says they can use a 3D CAD package and someone who can actually use it.


If the tree was useless, there would be no posts from users on this forum looking for workarounds to the problem of saving to an earlier version of the software. Though as I'm sure you will see if you look that there are many.


Michael

 

[sebastian]

Hello Everyone,
I faced a similar problem. One of my colleagues suggested to run 'ecosqueeze'. It worked for me. File was reduced to 1/10<SUP>th</SUP> of its original size. I think it could help, but before experimenting, please make a copy of your original file. To the 'new to Solidworks' guys, Ecosqueeze is a freeware. More info at <A href="http://www.ecocom.com/eng/index00.htm?frameurl=http://www.ecocom.com/eng/EcoSqueeze/ecosqueeze01.htm&frameno=2" target="_blank"> [url]http://www.ecocom.com/eng/index00.htm?frameurl=http://www.ec ocom.com/eng/EcoSqueeze/ecosqueeze01.htm&frameno=2 [/url]</A>


Regards

 

[ProE_Addict]

I downloaded the Ecocom freeware sebastian_ac recommended above and had little improvement. I have a folder which started at 19MB and reduced to only 18.2MB. Not really worth it for me.