Boolean VS Assembly?

[Elrick]

Im looking to improve the loading speeds of my drawings. I thought you would save a lot of time working with booleans instead of assembies but Im not so sure this works. My assemblies are getting huge and sometimes takes more than 10 minutes to load. With boolean add/subract I sometimes wait 4 min whereafter I get an error message. Which drains my patience daily.

The reason I choose assemblies is cos in Keyshot you need different parts for different colours. So everything of same colour, I want to put in a boolean.

Ive learned its better to work with booleans when you want to use the different cutting features or boolean subtract.

Since the shell feature in Alibre could be dissapointing sometimes I have to workaround with the boolean subtract, which is less accurate.

So which is better for parformance. Boolean or Assembly?

Another thing is when I want to copy booleaned drawings from one PC to another, where the different parts of booleans are in different folders, its a bit of a hassle to get the drawing to take its original state. Dont know how healthy this is for the software. I could swear it loads much better in wondows 7 than W8. Is it just a matter of putting the different parts in one folder or replacing the parts with the error window that pops up?

Any help,
Thanks

 

[H-L-Smith]

Unfortunately, Elrick, I can't answer your question, but you airplane is really cool. It looks like a STOL (Short Take-Off and Landing) amphibian from the looks of the flaps. Which parts of it did you do in Alibre Design?

Cheers,

Lonnie

 

[Lew_Merrick]

Elrick,

I think you are asking the wrong question. If speed of loading is your only criteria, then minimizing operations through a Boolean operation will usually be faster -- by that one measure.

However, stop and think about the geometry being used. A planar (flat) surface is a point in space (entity origin), a direction cosine, and various (planar) bounding elements. Such an entity will usually represent the smallest data element in your CAD dataset. It will (in almost all cases) be the quickest to load (or store), calculate, and display. Each degree of complexity added to a surface's shape adds to the time spent loading (or storing), calculating, and displaying that surface.

The original 3D CAD systems created polygonal shapes approximating true geometry, right? This was because of limitations on dataset size and computing power. While those limiting criteria have relaxed drastically over the years, they still exist. (A friend of mine spends more time than is rational simplifying conic-spline-based surface calculation operations for Boeing -- and Boeing is exceptionally "invested" in protecting those proprietary algorithms!) I would argue that, as fine a toolset as Alibre is, they are not going to be cutting edge in this arena anytime soon. However, I suspect that most of us know the price systems that are truly cutting edge in this arena add to our overhead.

The thing about a composite Boolean operand set is that, every so often at least, the system is going to have to "revisit" the baseline geometry to insure that everything is fully up to date. At that point, the time/speed advantage will actually end up on the conventional assembly side of things. The question should be: How often can you avoid regeneration from original geometry?

 

[Elrick]

Elrick,

I think you are asking the wrong question. If speed of loading is your only criteria, then minimizing operations through a Boolean operation will usually be faster -- by that one measure.

However, stop and think about the geometry being used. A planar (flat) surface is a point in space (entity origin), a direction cosine, and various (planar) bounding elements. Such an entity will usually represent the smallest data element in your CAD dataset. It will (in almost all cases) be the quickest to load (or store), calculate, and display. Each degree of complexity added to a surface's shape adds to the time spent loading (or storing), calculating, and displaying that surface.

The original 3D CAD systems created polygonal shapes approximating true geometry, right? This was because of limitations on dataset size and computing power. While those limiting criteria have relaxed drastically over the years, they still exist. (A friend of mine spends more time than is rational simplifying conic-spline-based surface calculation operations for Boeing -- and Boeing is exceptionally "invested" in protecting those proprietary algorithms!) I would argue that, as fine a toolset as Alibre is, they are not going to be cutting edge in this arena anytime soon. However, I suspect that most of us know the price systems that are truly cutting edge in this arena add to our overhead.

The thing about a composite Boolean operand set is that, every so often at least, the system is going to have to "revisit" the baseline geometry to insure that everything is fully up to date. At that point, the time/speed advantage will actually end up on the conventional assembly side of things. The question should be: How often can you avoid regeneration from original geometry?

Thanks Lew. What youre saying makes sense. It would be nice for Alibre to make it to that level too sometime. Can only imagine how complicated those calculations must be!? Im not one for maths or science, I just draw
I did however find one solution to speeden up the loading time by maybe 66%, I think. The file shrink by 66% if you export the whole boolean as a .sat but when you import it again to save as a Alibre part file it takes a very long time the first time. After that it loads quite good. Only problem with this is you have to go to the original drawing when you need to change geometry and go through the whole export import dril again. In the end I think its worth it. So you would go with boolean then. Cos assemblies could also be exported and imprted as a single file. But I've learned you cant really work with assembled/exported drawings. Or atleast the Loft and Extrude cut functions wont co operate sometimes. Endless errors. Most famous, "incossistend face body relations" :evil:

Unfortunately, Elrick, I can't answer your question, but you airplane is really cool. It looks like a STOL (Short Take-Off and Landing) amphibian from the looks of the flaps. Which parts of it did you do in Alibre Design?

Cheers,

Lonnie

Thanks Lonnie. It is an amphibian aircraft with a stall speed, @ maximum take off weight, of 54 kts. With a very good panoramic view. Also very spacious inside. Everything was drawn with Alibre. But I have say the body was made by hand. I use a self leveling cross lazer to measure. Accurate to 0.5 mm. Was very difficult since the plane is build piece by piece. I had to add to my drawings a lot. Ive worked around many flaws in Alibre now. My most exciting "discovery" was the sweep tool. Before I learned the sweep tool I thought I wont be able to finish the drawing in Alibre. But I have to say Alibre's capabilities, even though I want to through my pc out the window sometimes, is endless lol

 

[Elrick]

:idea: Just a question. Why cant boolean give you the same option to save all the parts of a drawing in one folder like with assemblies?? It gets a bit confusing when youre drawings are scattered all around the hard drive. Ok, maybe not litteraly but you know what I mean It would be nice if Boolean could give you the same option!

 

[RCH_Projects]

Referring to load speed.

I put a (small) SSD into my system that is CAD project dedicated.
The load speed is crazy drastic on large assemblies.

I even have file compression and the comparison is dizzy.



Though SSD is not well compatible with Vista I avoid defrag and other pitfalls as well as I can (with real-time continuous backup).
If you haven't tried it ...

(When do you take that beauty to market?)

 

[Elrick]

lol Well we're some months away from testing the proto type. Im bussy designing the doors and headlights. Hopefully in December.

I put a (small) SSD into my system that is CAD project dedicated.

How do you do this?? Never hear about this. Sounds interesting!

 

[DM8761]

an SSD is the "new" hard drive...

bascically its just a big usb drive that you stick in your case, i to use an SSD for boot drive/projet drive. when i am finished with a project i move it to secondary hard drive.

from the time you push the power button on the computer, after the bios beep, the windows log in screen is litterlay 2 secsonds later, after you hit enter after typing in your password the system is ready to work in 3 more seconds... at first i was hesitant, but SSD's are the way to go

i have loaded 50 part assemblies in seconds, its handy

there are many resources on SSD's and how to install/utilize them -mc google is ur friend-

 

[RCH_Projects]

Here is a reference too.

http://forum.alibre.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=15355&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=ssd

If you have a tower with empty bay on front or removable SATA drive bay maybe I can suggest good SSD case after you select a model.

Also good to lock up in fire-proof safe 8) .

(I only use my SSD for a "data" drive).

Also - total life of product is still in question as a newer tech.

 

[Elrick]

I Recently got two SSDs. I know these hard drives are really fast!

CAD project dedicated

I thought there was something to tick somewhere in the harddrives settings :roll: lol

but SSD's are the way to go

AGREED! 8)

 

[bigseb]

from the time you push the power button on the computer, after the bios beep, the windows log in screen is litterlay 2 secsonds later, after you hit enter after typing in your password the system is ready to work in 3 more seconds... at first i was hesitant, but SSD's are the way to go

What programs are in your start-up queue? And what peripherals do you have running?

 

[DM8761]

from the time you push the power button on the computer, after the bios beep, the windows log in screen is litterlay 2 secsonds later, after you hit enter after typing in your password the system is ready to work in 3 more seconds... at first i was hesitant, but SSD's are the way to go

What programs are in your start-up queue? And what peripherals do you have running?

start up programs? IDK the normal stuff? lol :wink: (ill screen shot when i get home) i use foxit (adobe sucks), microsoft security essentials, win defend, malware bytes. and stay off the NSFW sites...i do have the mouse/keyboard special drivers disabled by default on start up.

peripherals: mouse /w special driver, keyboard /w special driver, NO printer

i honestly believe that my mobo has a lot to do with how well this computer operates, the mobo uses a "intel smart response" thing... idk exactly how it works, but i know it kicks butt, i have built dozens of computers, for myself and other people and this one is by far the quickest and most responsive, the z77 chipset rocks http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131821

Drive 1: SSD 256GB, boot drive/current projects
Drive 2: HHD 600GB, 6GB/s, 10k rpm, games, other programs (Microsoft office) old projects
Drive 3: HHD 1TB, 3GB/s, 7.2 rpm, itunes, music/ and pictures
Drive 4: HHD 500GB, 3GB/s, 7.2 rpm, mirror of drive 1

The case I have has an external hot swap for another HHD/SSD, and once a month, I will back up everything at once onto a 2TB, and put it back in my fire proof safe.

 

[DM8761]

see below