Size of DWG data in ArchiCAD 8

Written by László Nagy

There is a phenomenon, which is the following. If you import in ArchiCAD a DWG file that contains polylines, the size of the PLN file saved from ArchiCAD 8 can be considerable larger than that of the file saved from ArchiCAD 7.0.
The caused of the phenomenon is twofold. Firstly, in ArchiCAD 7.0, there was no polyline element. So polylines of DWG files were converted to line and arc segments in ArchiCAD 7.0. Secondly, the data structure of ArchiCAD 8 is different from that of ArchiCAD 7.0. Specifically, there is more data that has to be stored for elements even if there are only a small number of elements. So the initial overhead is larger in case of AC 8. Storage need for a line, for example, is larger in AC 8 than in AC 7.0.
As the number of elements in the Project increases, difference in file size between versions usually decreases or levels out.

Page last updated: Saturday, December 19, 2009