Huge slowdown with hi-res ref. planes

[A.Mitov]

Hello,

 

We have recently been given a project which we are about to begin. But we came across a problem. There were only plotted PDFs of the drawings so we had to import them as ref. planes in Max in GIF format (because of the smaller file size - ~2 MB each image).

As soon as we placed all the planes, Max began to load the project very slowly and to use ~3 GB of ram with only the planes in the scene (though navigating was extremely smooth). I suspect the resolution of the images is causing this huge memory consumption but since the building is very large we couldn't reduce the size much. Actually, now each image is about 20 000 x 10 000 pixels!!! Unfortunately reducing this resolution makes the drawings difficult to read. Is there a way to speed things up? I will be grateful to hear any suggestions so the project is done on time. The deadline is really tight and time is running out.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

"There were only plotted PDFs of the drawings"

 

Was the PDF generated from a CAD drawing, or was it generated from a scanned of a drawing? If it was generated directly from a CAD drawing, then you should be able to pull that data back out. Simply open the PDF with Illustrator, and save the data as a DWG. You will need to rescale the drawing once you import it into Max, but at least it will be vector information that doesn't use as much memory, and can be snapped to.

 

If the PDF is of a scanned drawing, then you may want to quickly try converting the raster to a vector through a tracing program, but I wouldn't get my hopes on that quality of the output using one of these methods.

 

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/bitmaptovector/Bitmap_to_Vector_Conversion_Tracing_Software_Raster_to_Vector.htm

Edited March 14, 2009 by Crazy Homeless Guy

[A.Mitov]

Yes, there are plotted from AutoCAD. I'm going to try what you suggested.

 

Edit: Thanks, man, it worked!!! I've exported the PDF to DWG and everything looks OK.

Edited March 15, 2009 by A.Mitov