Very Slow Printing / Plotting

[dlancor]

Hello all,

I have a question about plotting / printing. Our office began using Revit 8 weeks ago, and we love it and everything has been going well. This forum has been of great help.

But, we recently moved in to CD's on one of our projects and created a sheet with 6 building sections on it, and it takes an hour to print the sheet. If we try to get a preview, it hangs and crashes Revit before it brings up the preview

Does this seem unusually long, or do these views take this long when complicated? If we print one view it also takes a while which makes me think its just the model size...

We're just printing hidden line views, vector, with short (10') view ranges established when we create the section markers.


We are an established office with a server, good practices ( I hope), decent computers, etc.


Thank you,

David Lancor
PBC+L Architecture
Asheville, NC

[sfaust]

I don't know how big or complex your wall sections are, but we have not had this problem (althought we don't do really large buildings). Do you have shadows turned on by chance? that will slow printing down significantly.

Hopefully someone else will have a better answer, but something to check...

[aaronrumple]

Are these CD's? Do you have Advanced Model Graphics turned on?

If they are construction type drawings, they should print in a few seconds. I can do a whole job in the time you are talking about.

If you are trying to print shadows, they can take a long time....

[dlancor]

Aaron and Steve,

Well, we do not have advanced graphics turned on.

It is simply a CD sheet, without any notes, with 6 building sections (and our buildng is only one story tall!). It is not a complicated geometry, but does show many roof trusses, and some detail.

[SkiSouth]

Hello all,

But, we recently moved in to CD's on one of our projects and created a sheet with 6 building sections on it, and it takes an hour to print the sheet. If we try to get a preview, it hangs and crashes Revit before it brings up the preview
What kind of memory on the graphics card? Are you running open windows. Also what speed machine and how much ram? Also, are you spooling the plot over a network, or plotting direct to a
plotter. How much memory is in plotter?

I have found that Revit generates a much larger plot file than Acad, so there are some differences that must be addressed.

[neb1998]

Aaron and Steve,

Well, we do not have advanced graphics turned on.

It is simply a CD sheet, without any notes, with 6 building sections (and our buildng is only one story tall!). It is not a complicated geometry, but does show many roof trusses, and some detail.
What is taking a long time? Revit actually finishing the software printing process or the printer processing the job? Meaning at the bottom of the screen does it say PRINTING...and then the percentage sits at like 50-60 perrcent for a long time or does it finish and then the printer takes a long time to process the file?

[Wes Macaulay]

Also, Revit's method of "ripping" to create the plots is quite intense; evidently some printer drivers won't put up with it. Then you'll have to print to DWF first or PDF, and then print that.

[sbrown]

try adjusting the far clip plane so its only showing what needs to show. try 2 things first change it to just 1", see if the print goes quickly, if so that means there are lots of things in the distance revit is having to "hide". If thats not it,make sure all dwgs are turned off.

[dlancor]

Ben,

When we print (or try to generate a preview), it zips up to 50% complete, and then hangs there for a long time before sending to the printer.

I am farily new to the firm, and now that I look at our computer properties, it appears we are just running with the integrated Intel Graphics controller - I am amazed at how well our computers handle Revit considering that!

But, we are using Pentium 4, 3.2 ghz, with 1GB of RAM - is this not fast enough?

I will also try to change the view depths to 1' instead of 10' and see if there is a modeling issue....

Thank you all,

David

[dlancor]

More specs...

We are plotting to a HP Designjet 1055 or printing to a Canon C3220 (copier / printer) - the same problem happens either way, which makes me think that it is our computers or model.....40 minutes is a very long time.

David
PBC+L Architecture
Asheville, NC

[neb1998]

Ben,

When we print (or try to generate a preview), it zips up to 50% complete, and then hangs there for a long time before sending to the printer.

I am farily new to the firm, and now that I look at our computer properties, it appears we are just running with the integrated Intel Graphics controller - I am amazed at how well our computers handle Revit considering that!

But, we are using Pentium 4, 3.2 ghz, with 1GB of RAM - is this not fast enough?

I will also try to change the view depths to 1' instead of 10' and see if there is a modeling issue....

Thank you all,

DavidYeah to answer your first question/comment... high end video cards do not help with revit *yet, as the program relies soley on the processor for most tasks.

That should be fast enough to print, i would double check that each section / view does not have advanced model graphics turned on or like sbrown said that you do not have any large acad files floating around in the background. They could be behind your model to an extent that they are no longer visible - again like sbrown said try setting the far clip plane no further than is required.

Usually you will not see the print bar freeze like that at 50% and then crawl forward unless you have advanced model graphics on.....you may also want to turn on task manager during one print and take a look at whats running in the background - if you would like to printscreen on your task manager and post here i can help isolate any programs that would cause the slowdown.

goodluck.

[sfaust]

make sure to check that advanced model graphics is not on in ANY of the views on the sheet if you haven't already...

[dlancor]

Thank you all for your help - we figured out the problem.

We had imported (not linked) some autocad files into our site plan, and did not select 'current view only'. A big mistake. So, once I turned off each of those imported categories in each of the building sections, and the sheet, it printed like a charm.

For this project, we will move all of our .dwgs to a workset and turn it off most of the time.

Thank you for your input - it helped me to diagnose the problem.

David