printing slows down after changing from 8.11.09.292 to 8.11.09.459

Although I still have a service ticket (7000057607) I would like to bring this up here, just for some additional thoughts.

We and our customers (as a Bentley Partner) make use of the section abilities of microstation. But lately we figured out that if sections are used, the printing becomes terrible slow in versions after 8.11.09.357.

The model to be printed is a sheet (ISO A4) with a top view, and 3 sections (via drawing models). There are about 120 solids in the visible area.

Now what happens ? in 8.11.09.292 print preview was nearly immediately and printing takes ~10sek (pdf or printer). Since 8.11.09.357 (and in .459) the preview runs out of time (even after rising the limit to 60sek), and the print takes over 3 minutes (this is what the preview might even need)

All tested versions are standard with the delivered pltcfg. There are 3 possible "solutions" with different problem.

1. opt in 'rasterized' - preview comes immediately and printing takes less than 30 sek. -> but we print a picture now

2. use 'cached' references in the drawing models of the sections -> immediately preview, but you have to go in each of the drawings and wait ~2 minutes before the cached model was generated (in sum even more than 6 minutes at all)

3. raise the timeout -> hey, we get a preview - after ~3mins (for a model of 10x5x3 meter)

The resulting pdf is 390kb, the file (+2 external references of the surrounding) are in sum less than 1MB. Meanwhile they become a little bit larger after using the 'cached' section references but still < 3MB.

While I would really like to advice our customers to move to the latest version of MicroStation, I currently are in need of a better resolution as our customers files are normally at least 10x larger and I cannot expect them to wait for 15 or 30 minutes for a single print.

At the end ...
- going back with the drawing to .292 -> prints fast, but I miss features and the new render engine.
- having both of them on one maschine ? nearly impossible unless in different languages

Any additional thoughts or hints are really welcome.

Michael

(btw. the slowdown was affirmed by one of the support guys, who gave me some of the hints)

  • Michael,

    We are seeing similar slow down, not necessarily tied to a specific version or your workflow.  I think that as each version comes out the 3D modeling capability grows and both Bentley and Autodesk put the fact that we have to create drawings and plot them on paper on the back burner. 

    We are thinking about going back to the old way of hidden line files, however, with the shortened project schedules today, this is not a good solution. Creating the drawings from the live 3D models is a necessity today.  Someone needs to look at better ways of converting from the active 3D model to the plotted paper drawing, we are not at the point where the contractors will walk around with iPads and view the model only.  Most of them have problems finding workers who can read a drawing and a measuring stick.

    Our PDF file size has grown exponentially over the last few years and while we are moving forward in some areas, 3D modeling and visualization, we were able to get out paper drawings faster 30 years ago with pen plotters (well maybe not a good analogy).

    [V8i SS4  08.11.09.829, BRCM, Promis-e, OpenPlant Modeler, OpenPlant PID, STAAD, RAM, ProSteel, InRoads, FlowMaster, Map, PondPack, StormCAD, Descartes]

  • I thought your analogy with the pen plotter was excellent but you forgot at least the pen plotter was fun to watch.

    @B

  • Bump. To be more annoying the same bevaviour exists in Connect EAP. Preview in non rasterize mode cannot finish and printing takes minutes !!! If anyone likes to test, I'm willing to share a sample dgn.