Fix long polyline properties freeze

[Wish List System]

Summary: Fix AutoCAD freezing when selecting polylines with large numbers of vertices by having a user setting for the maximum number of vertices considered for properties calculations.

Description: There's a known problem with AutoCAD (and all verticals) When working with polylines that have a large number of vertices, AutoCAD is very slow, specifically when the polyline is selected. AutoCAD may appear to freeze if you are working with complex polylines and the Properties palette is open due to the geometries being calculated, the more numbers of vertices/vertex a polyline contain, the longer it takes for AutoCAD to compute.
Weeding / reducing the number of vertices as suggested by AutoDESK is an unacceptable solution. The proper fix would be to have a user setting that disables the properties calculations for polylines over a set number of vertices.

Product and Feature: AutoCAD - Property Palette

Submitted By: dkennard on 05/14/2024

[Ed Jobe]

I don't see how this would be possible, since the list of vertices is one of the main properties of a pline. You could instead turn on QUICKPROPERTIES and tun off the PROPERTIES palette. QP doesn't list the vertices, just a few props. Hope that helps.

[Tom Beauford]

To me r14 was the biggest performance increase of AutoCAD ever mostly because of the introduction of lightweight polylines that cut the size of most of our survey drawings containing contours to less than half the size since before then one contour could be a hundred entities with one for each endpoint and one extra while as a lwpolyline it was only one entity. Regens that took 5 minutes before became instant afterwards.

Is there a reason you still need to work with complex polylines with large numbers of vertices?

[dkennard]

Thanks Tom,
The survey data I get is from inline inspection of pipelines. Typically the survey tool generates a data point every one metre, or so and the pipeline is perhaps several hundred kilometres long. I end up with polylines with thousands of vertices.

[dkennard]

Thanks Ed,
It's a workflow thing I guess, I always work with the full properties palette open. If I know I'm going to be working on a drawing containing monster polylines then I'll close the properties palette, it's the times when I forget to close it, or I'm not familiar with the contents of the drawing that trip me up.

[Ed Jobe]

The other thing you can do is reduce the number of vertices in the pipeline. Since it's made of straight segments, you can assume some number of replication, e.g. if a single pipe is 10 meters long, you can delete 8 intermediate vertices.

Perhaps you can also reduce the sample rate of your survey equipment.

Another trick you can try is to xref the polylines. That way you can set GRIPBLOCK to 0 and lock the layer of the xref so you can't select it.

[Tom Beauford]

Thanks Tom,
The survey data I get is from inline inspection of pipelines. Typically the survey tool generates a data point every one metre, or so and the pipeline is perhaps several hundred kilometres long. I end up with polylines with thousands of vertices.

All feature lines generated from survey data we import into Civil 3D are 3D and most contain curves defined several different ways. As they are actual intelligent data as opposed to a 3dpolyline object they generate instantly. Are you using Civil 3D?
https://help.autodesk.com/view/CIV3D...6-CCF6CE1A9345
Technically since the solution is built into Civil 3D I don't see this as a valid Wish List item.

[dkennard]

Thanks Ed, Vertices reduction wont work for me, as I have to compare historic surveys with the current survey. Also the effort involved determining which vertices can be removed would be huge.

[dkennard]

Thanks Tom, No I'm using vanilla AutoCAD, I don't have Civil 3D in my license collection. Since it is still problem in the product I use, I do see it as a valid Wish List item. I'd be willing to bet that Civil 3D would exhibit the same behaviour as vanilla AutoCAD at least prior to conversion to a feature object.

[Ed Jobe]

Thanks Ed, Vertices reduction wont work for me, as I have to compare historic surveys with the current survey. Also the effort involved determining which vertices can be removed would be huge.

What about the xref suggestion? Do you have to select the polylines or are you accidentally selecting them?