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SW 2018 STL export runs very slow.

Question asked by Phil Iehle on Jan 26, 2018
Latest reply on Feb 6, 2019 by Keith Parker

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I have been having an issue with 2018 when exporting an stl.

Using the same STL resolution settings that I have been using in 2015-16-17 which worked fine now take much longer to export. For instance a 25mb file would normally save in under 5 seconds. Now I can wait 30 to 60 seconds for the same file to export. A file of 200mb or so can take up to 5 minutes to write to disk. I notice the disk is not being accessed except in little fragments every now and then. The computer, OS, and disks are all the same as when 2017 was on the machine.

Solidworks shows 25% CPU usage on a 4 core I7 the whole time it's exporting.

Any Ideas?

I do notice this is not always true. Sometimes it will export in a "normal" amount of time. Other times it can hang on a 2Mb file for up to 2-3 minutes.

Phil Iehle Mar 14, 2018 2:30 PM

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Hello everyone, Here is the response:

I have attached this SR to SPR 1072372 (Performance: SOLIDWORKS take a very long time to save file in STL when using SW2018).
This is definitely a regression in SW2018. SOLIDWORKS R&D did a lot of changes in the code on how we handle STL files due a new feature introduced in SW2018 release (graphic bodies). I believe this will be a priority SPR for them. I will bump the priority of the SR to high as the performance is not very good with this settings.

Paul, Even with the errors 2016 & 2017 exports in 12 seconds versus 5 Min, 57 Seconds for 2018 (On the same machine). That's the real issue.

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22 Replies

Paul Salvador Jan 26, 2018 12:49 PM
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Hello Phil,.. can you do a direct comparison,.. and note if the facet counts are the same//close/similar?
The one thought is the image quality may have increased in your 2018 model(s)?
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- Phil Iehle @ Paul Salvador on Jan 26, 2018 1:54 PM
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  direct compare on same file (eyeglass frames):
  
  2017: Settings- 1deg, .0008" tolerance.
  Time to preview: 7 Sec
  Tri's 2,956,152
  Est file size: 147.8Mb
  Time to write file: 8 Sec
  Actual file size: 120.7Mb
  
  2018: Settings- 1deg, .0008" tolerance
  Time to preview: 8 Sec
  Tri's: 2,956,488
  Est file size: 147.82Mb
  Time to write file: 27 Minutes, 18 Sec.
  Actual file size: 120.7Mb
  
  This one was very very slow.
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  - Paul Salvador @ Phil Iehle on Jan 26, 2018 2:17 PM
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    Phil,.. ok, thanks,... WOW!... you'd need to send to your VAR.. and hopefully get SR # issued asap!
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Phil Iehle Jan 26, 2018 2:39 PM
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I was posting in the forums here to see if anyone else had this issue before going back to my VAR. Most of the time I can find a fix here.
Just for history, I have clean re-installed 2018 twice for other issues.
I don't know what it's doing for 28 minutes @ 25% CPU (100% - 1 core), but there is actually no disk access to write the file until the last few seconds when it finally does write the file.
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- Paul Salvador @ Phil Iehle on Jan 26, 2018 3:03 PM
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  Hey Phil,.. which reminds me,.. why we can't run this mesher independent or in the background?
  ..hmm,.. curious, is the file being written to your local drive or a network drive?
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  - Phil Iehle @ Paul Salvador on Jan 26, 2018 4:00 PM
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    Running the mesher or other translators in the background has crossed my mind before, but I have not found out anything about doing so yet.
    As for the drive, it's local. Networked drives are too slow. I have a local copy of the NAS CAD storage drive that's kept sync'ed.
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    - Paul Salvador @ Phil Iehle on Jan 26, 2018 5:08 PM
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      arrgghh.. I took 2018 off.. maybe someone else can chime in with something?
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      - Phil Iehle @ Paul Salvador on Jan 26, 2018 6:13 PM
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        I would take 2018 off the machine except that I have to keep pace with my major customers, most of whom have already moved to 2018!
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Keith Parker Jan 29, 2018 10:42 AM
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Phil and others - I'll be watching this very carefully because we produce multi-Gb STL-file output every day, so certainly won't be moving to 2018 yet!

Cheers, Keith
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Phil Iehle Mar 14, 2018 11:46 AM
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Update on slow STL performance:

After working with my VAR he is able to duplicate the slow write times for STL's that have very fine resolution (Were talking 1 degree and .001" tolerance) and approach triangle counts of 4+ million and file sizes of 200Mb+. That may be a bit confusing but we don't know exactly what triggers it. Of coarse files with organic curved shapes will create high triangle counts, and that's where I ran into the problem. To sum up, this has been passed onto SolidWorks as an SPR to be resolved and likely show up in a service pack.

Hope this helps answer folks questions - I'll post any pertinent updates.
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- Paul Salvador @ Phil Iehle on Mar 14, 2018 12:02 PM
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  Ok,.. thanks for the update, Phil.
  (btw,.. can you share the SPR#?)
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Christian Chu Mar 14, 2018 12:06 PM
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Can you post your model here so others can try saving it as stl file
There might be some features on your model which cause the issue converting to different format
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Phil Iehle Mar 14, 2018 1:49 PM
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The SPR has not been assigned yet. I'll post when it gets assigned.

It's a 2017 file and the export settings used are:
STL,
1.0 Degrees, 0.0007 Tolerance
That should produce about 4.5M triangles.

I can't attach the file as it's 30Mb. So here is a link to it:
http://www.versadyne.net/download/Skull-Right.zip
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- Paul Salvador @ Phil Iehle on Mar 14, 2018 2:14 PM
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  Hey Phil,.. just a fyi,.. a few things I found.
  - your model has 2 invalid edges (vertex not on curve).
  - also has problems after doing a Ctrl-Q.
  - and, after exporting via Parasolid, the topology still some errors,.. but can be repaired.... (curious, if exporting/cleaning this file in 2018 would show/have the same issue?)
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Phil Iehle Mar 14, 2018 2:30 PM
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Hello everyone, Here is the response:

I have attached this SR to SPR 1072372 (Performance: SOLIDWORKS take a very long time to save file in STL when using SW2018).
This is definitely a regression in SW2018. SOLIDWORKS R&D did a lot of changes in the code on how we handle STL files due a new feature introduced in SW2018 release (graphic bodies). I believe this will be a priority SPR for them. I will bump the priority of the SR to high as the performance is not very good with this settings.

Paul, Even with the errors 2016 & 2017 exports in 12 seconds versus 5 Min, 57 Seconds for 2018 (On the same machine). That's the real issue.
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- Paul Salvador @ Phil Iehle on Mar 14, 2018 2:43 PM
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  Gracias,.. yeah, I agree, it was probably not a past issue and now has "surfaced" (pun if you will) as they have added to newer mesh functionality... and the dev is most likely still engaged/contracted...
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- Keith Parker @ Phil Iehle on Mar 29, 2018 5:14 AM
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  Phil - thanks for getting this escalated. I'll try & find the time to process some of our multi-million-triangle models to STL in 2017 & 2018 to add further evidence...
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Keith Parker May 16, 2018 11:06 AM
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Hi All
I've done what I can to escalate this to my VAR and Solidworks. My timing on SP1.0 on a fine-resolution 1GB STL export was ~2 minutes in 2017 and ~50 minutes on 2018! My VAR has tested my file on 2018 SP 1.0, 2.0 & EV3.0 with the same result.

Cheers, Keith
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Keith Parker Aug 1, 2018 1:39 PM
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For those of you still interested - the fix has been promised in 2018 SP4.0

Cheers, Keith
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- Keith Parker @ Keith Parker on Oct 19, 2018 5:12 PM
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  At last! I can report that 2018 SP4.0 performs my test STL output only a little slower than 2017 (maybe 10% longer). About 10 months of SW2018 lost, so now to try to regain the Subscription fees for a product that we can only use for 20% of the year!
  
  Cheers
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  - Paul Salvador @ Keith Parker on Oct 19, 2018 5:44 PM
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    Keith, you've made me think of a new meaning for,..ROI,... (running out of ideas)
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  - Keith Parker @ Keith Parker on Feb 6, 2019 1:17 PM
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    In case anyone's interested, I ran my STL-generation test in 2019 SP1.0 and the elapsed time is back to the SW2017 timing. Thank goodness for that!
    
    Cheers
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