How to improve Edit Surface (topography) performance

[jameswest77]

I'm using Revit 2011 and am modeling a large development with a "projected area" of 305k m2. I've felt like I've been pretty conservative with the amount of points I've included, but still my i7 930 workstation is chugging with every point modification. I've tried the "simplify surface" command, with a precision of 75%, twice, but without any noticeable improvement.

Is the performance hit due to the area of the toposurface or the number of points?

Besides a faster processor, can you suggest any way to improve performance? Every time I add or move a point it takes upwards of 15 seconds to refresh, which can get tedious with a site this large.

Thanks,
James

[gwnelson]

Topo is very memory intensive. How much are you packin?

[jameswest77]

Topo is very memory intensive. How much are you packin?

8gb, and I haven't noticed my Task Manager's memory performance graph grow at all as I've been adding points. With the single model open, revit is using just over 1.1gb of memory and my system is using just over 3.4 total.

[brethomp]

Use the split surface command to divide your site into smaller chunks when you are editing. You can merger the surfaces back together when you are done with the modifications. But be careful about sub regions when merging the sites back together.

[cdatechguy]

305km? I would definitely split the topo up to multiple pieces...

Might also split them up into different models as well and then link them together...

[cdatechguy]

Someone beat me to it....lol;)

[jameswest77]

Use the split surface command to divide your site into smaller chunks when you are editing. You can merger the surfaces back together when you are done with the modifications. But be careful about sub regions when merging the sites back together.

I did do that and I didn't see any improvement. I divided the site into quadrants and experienced the same 15second lag when modifying points.

This is a hill-top site with lots of contours everywhere so dividing the site isn't very easy, since moving points on one area affects the contours on another.

I don't think it's a ram issue, since I have lots of headroom at that bottleneck, but when I move a point I see the CPU performance graph jump during that 15sec lag, so maybe this is just a limitation of the cpu.

[jameswest77]

305km? I would definitely split the topo up to multiple pieces...

Might also split them up into different models as well and then link them together...

sorry, it's area is 305,000 m2, not 305km, to be clear.

I just performed a "split surface" and cut it down to just over 75,000. I don't see any noticeable difference yet, but I'll try for a little while.

[rtaube]

Are you hiding the remaining topo surfaces after the split? You could be having a bottleneck at the graphics card.

[sbrown]

When you say you simplified by 75%, how? The typical setting is something like 3" I usually change that to 1'. Which would change the number of point dramatically. You need as few points in your model as possible. But with a large site is will always be slow. what I do is split out an area for grading, group it, change it to a link, modify the link, reload, bind, then merge when done.

But Revit really isn't meant to do much grading on surfaces that large. I have done a 700 acre site and it was very painful, I put a grid over the site spliting into many little pieces and linked files. Left the lines there. Make the grid something that makes sense.