Precise Section View performance test

[HaroldL]

I've already submitted this to Support but thought I'd post here to see if anyone can duplicate my results or has better performance. This may be similar to the "lagging" complaint that has been discussed on the forum.

I have an assembly that I created in v25 SP1 that needs to have threads modeled so they show up in a rendered image section view. I already know that helical features take a performance hit but in this case they are necessary.

The issue is that when I apply a Precise Section View in either the assembly or part it takes Alibre a long, long time to resolve the section view. It also seems that parts with a longer thread feature take longer to resolve than one with a shorter thread feature. Alibre will just freeze up without any indication, like a "wait" cursor, that is it doing anything. I had to open the Task Manager to see if it was working. TM indicated that AD was not responding but did show some CPU usage. After a few minutes the status field at the bottom left of the workspace started to read out that AD was updating faces.

So, I am hoping that someone will test the attached model (the same one provided support) on their computer and post back their results. I have the part models and the assembly set up with configurations for Threads and No Threads. There is also a Precise Section View created that only has to be toggled On or Off. (Hint: It's not in the Help manual but you only need to double click on the section view name in the DE to toggle it. No need for the RMB menu.)

One more thing, did anyone actually test Precise Section View performance during Beta testing v25? I know it's something that slipped past me.

 

[Ken226]

It produced the section view nearly instantaneously.

 

[Ken226]

Unless i'm misunderstanding your question.


This part rendered the section view instantly.






This one lagged for awhile. About 30 seconds before it rendered the image. I deleted your section view and created a new one, several times. 30 seconds to 1 minute on average.





The issue is definitely the threads.

I started deleting features one at a time while re-trying the section view. When I deleted the long thread feature it sectioned instantly.

 

[HaroldL]

When I deleted the long thread feature it sectioned instantly.

That's why I created the two configurations, so it could be tested with and without the threads. Expand the Configurations in the DE and you won't have to delete anything.

My results showed almost instantaneous section view with no threads. It's when I switched to the Threads config that I saw the lag. The assembly Threads config is really slow.

 

[Cator]

Harold
I have tried your experiment and I too have the same result. The window freezes for about a minute with the CPU usage at 15% and then returns the section view. Note that the progress bar does not work at all in this case.

 

[DavidJ]

I suspect that this is at least in part down the the re-calculation of the helical features. I'm sure that support will check for anything more untoward that might be adding additional delay.

It's one reason why Dynamic Section Views were introduced - they are near instantaneous as the model itself doesn't get re-calculated for every movement. They work very well with this assembly.

 

[jfleming]

Harold
I have tried your experiment and I too have the same result. The window freezes for about a minute with the CPU usage at 15% and then returns the section view. Note that the progress bar does not work at all in this case.

"Ditto"
Windows 10
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz
16GB RAM;
Nvidia Quadro M2000

 

[Cator]

"Ditto"
Windows 10
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz
16GB RAM;
Nvidia Quadro M2000

Windows 11 Pro for Workstation
Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-2123 CPU @ 3.60GHz 3.60 GHz
32Gb RAM
Nvidia P 2000

 

[HaroldL]

Thanks for the feed back on this. Seems like the results are consistent on other's computers, the helical threads are a time killer. Looks like, going forward, I'll be adding configurations to those parts that I want to add threaded features to so I can toggle them off when not required for modeling purposes.

Its one reason why Dynamic Section Views were introduced - they are near instantaneous as the model itself doesn't get re-calculated for every movement. They work very well with this assembly.

Thanks for that point. I just tried it and was able to work with the constraints while the section view was active. I haven't used Dynamic Section views that much in the past but will now be added to my workflow. I've always defaulted to Precise Section Views because they are right there in the DE and RMB menu and can be configured.

I'm still waiting for a reply from support on what was found out, if it is a regression or not.