Performance when working with imported Revit
I love using Bricscad v23 - 25 (with my limited experience), but I have to say that the performance with imported Revit is problematic. I don't know if it's machine-specific (AMD, 64Mb ram, NVidea 8GB) or if Autodesk has managed to insert some gremlins.
I've been through the mill with support. And, whilst they've been very good with other queries, this is something that I've had NO joy with. Like I said this has been a problem over at least three different versions.
The main, critical, issue is crashing out when running BIMSECTIONUPDATE (usually to export plans). It crashes almost every time. There are other issues:
- imported stories appear well above the floors they represent
- space names not imported
I'm wondering if there is anybody else out there who has had similar problems.
Comments
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Hello.
The issue could be related to how some of the 3D objects from Revit are imported into Bricscad.
Many times, especially when the geometry is very complex, some 3D objects are imported as triangular meshes with hundreds or even thousands of triangles.
When the number of these objects is quite large, the result of importing is a very "heavy" model including lots of complex triangular meshes.
This kind of model is very hard to process.
This relates, among others, to navigating the model, creating and updating 2D views, and display issues with the 2D views.There is no automatic way to solve these problems, if this is the case.
The solution would be to analyze the model and try to manually fix or simplify the model.Regarding stories and spaces, the issues here could also be influenced by badly imported geometry, as they are based on it.
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I really wanted to be able to use the BIM-part of BricsCAD, but its not usable.
I worked for a client to do the electrical for a 2 story rather simple building and it was a horrible experience. It was extremely sluggish, looong wait-times when changing views, switching floors or just orbit around the model. It all ended in a meeting one day together with the client, they just wanted some small changes but was left speechless watching me struggle to make the software do the simplest thing.
I ended up turning off the computer and sketching it all on a paper drawing.
The client terminated the contract and we stopped offering BIM-modelling.
I was using a rather beefy computer, but it didnt seem to matter what I was using, looking in the Task Manager when BricsCAD was struggling the CPU and GPU was hardly in use, so I guess they have some major optimizations to do.
One may argue that the model was an IFC made from a Revit Model, but it was smooth in other softwares, the building was rather small and other disiplines was not imported.
I also later digitized some paper drawings by remake the floorplans with BIM, but once a floor was finished one could feel it all starting to get more sluggish, so the next floor was done in a new file.
I like the workflow, a lot of nice ways to do things, but it has a long way to go, it needs major improvements.
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It seems as though we want similar results from Bricscad, but are having similar problems.
I was thinking of offering some kind of CAD/ BIM service alongside my building physics/ energy assessment business. I'll take your story as a warning. I've not lost a client like you have, but I have lost a lot of time. My usual work involves a lot of defeaturing, which I tend to do in 2D. I've lost my time whenever I've tried to use a client's revit model as a starting point instead of their 2D plans.
I've also noticed that it doesn't appear "resource hungry".
This is a real shame. It seems like they have the makings of a great product that falls down as far as BIM is concerned.
Does anybody know if it is more stable on Linux?
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I'm not a bim user but as @eivber worte:
"I was using a rather beefy computer, but it didnt seem to matter what I was using, looking in the Task Manager when BricsCAD was struggling the CPU and GPU was hardly in use, so I guess they have some major optimizations to do."
I see the same issue with 3D modeling file - the CPU (i7-12700H) and GPU (RTX 4060) hardly in use,memory as well but bricscad struggle.
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“the model was an IFC made from a Revit Model”
ah, similar experience a while ahead go, received an IFC exported from Revit of a footbridge, the bridge had chains supporting the bridge on each side from vertical posts each end of the bridge, I used it as a reference model.Man, IDK what the problem was but that DWG I imported the IFC into was super slow to open, and super slow, like 30+ seconds for every QSAVE command which I tend to do every 5 commands or so in case of a crash. I tried all kinds of things with that IFC including pushing it into Navisworks, reducing the facet factor, exporting as FBX, importing FBX into AutoCAD 2019, saving the DWG. Importing the FBX into Blender, exporting as DAE Collada, to import int BricsCAD. Nothing helped, orbiting too was very sluggish for such a small simple model.
Maybe BricsCAD’s ACIS kernel just can’t handle B-Rep geometry very well, IDK.
On a side note, I think it’s about time CAD developers start considering switching to a modern ‘Implicit’ geometry kernel. Not only is Implicit less mathematically demanding, it’s able to make good use of parallel GPU processing and file size is super small and it can practically never fail to be water tight.B-Rep geometry in contrast, dates back to the 1970’s, is mathematically complicated, resource intensive, large file sizes and often fails and breaks and unreliable for something needing to be water tight.
Revit and Tekla use B-Rep geometry, not sure about the other BIM apps, archicad, vectorworks etc.1 -
"I was using a rather beefy computer, but it didnt seem to matter what I was using, looking in the Task Manager when BricsCAD was struggling the CPU and GPU was hardly in use, so I guess they have some major optimizations to do."
Well this is a typical experience in BricsCAD with native geometry particularly when component count exceeds 5-10,000 parts with and without parametrics, visibility’s states etc.
Most of the issues are orbiting, panning, zooming in model space, switching sheets tabs in paper space, dimensioning in paper space, panning, zooming etc, worse with shaded viewports and viewport qtys.
Most of the blame is on the graphics engine, Tech Soft 3D Hoops Visualize. It’s an ancient OpenGL based engine with practically no optimisations to take advantage of modern GPU’s. My beef is that they are focused more on photo realistic rendering. I’ve never done any photo realistic rendering in BricsCAD nor do I think I’ll ever have the requirement to do so. I do spend 80-20 percent of my time in modelspace&paperspace.I’ve extensively tested many of my 3D models on two machines on the opposite end of the performance spectrum, I can tell you the desktop with an i9 12900KS CPU & Radeon RX 7900 GPU can’t achieve a higher frame rate than a lousy toy laptop with 2 performance cores and a pathetic 4GB GPU, lol it can even render a PDF with any reasonable speed.
As the quoted poster reports, GPU & CPU in BricsCAD is practically idle, while struggling like hell.
I test similar but significantly larger models in Tekla Structures on my desktop and it spins any model around effortlessly, 200+ FPS, and it’s nice to see that the CPU is using all 8 cores feeding the GPU which gets maxed out in utilisation and board power 300+W. A test model with 190,000 parts, some 2,000 tonne, certainly takes a hit, max about 30 FPS including a visual style with transparency, still orbits around useably, hardware is holding it back. Still, way faster than BricsCAD with a 50,000 part model roughly 5 FPS.It’s a clear observable result, and the confidence is that if I need a higher frame rate for larger models I know full well that buying a faster GPU will achieve a higher frame rate, because the model performance is limited by the hardware, not the software.In BricsCADs case paying 5k for a 5090 would be an utter waste of money, performance will still suck no matter what’s installed, because the software is gimping the hardware, that’s depressing.1