Oshape is too slow, any idea for improvements?

ruwo_n_a

i have a project in onshape i have been working on for the past 8 months, and it's getting realy complex. Onshape is proving to really not be able to cope with this complexity. my pc is powefull enough to handle way more complex assemblies in fusion 360. the project is getting too slow to even work on. i tried editing a sketch, i needed to project a single point from a context, and it took 35 minutes. 35 minutes that the pc was just sitting there. not using any cpu or gpu reallly. i would think that my interent is fast enough:  http://www.speedtest.net/result/7442317093.png. do any of you have any sugestions on solving this issue? does premium give you better performance? or can i move this project to fusion 360 without losing all the parametric history? i really can't start over, however i can throw a small ammount of money at it if it will solve anything. here is the document: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/f4076b884bd69adfaafe9807/w/d82547b7b2d3e1309b28d8dc/e/70112a56ed6d7f27e2097759.

thx in advance, RUWO.

Jake_Rosenfeld

@ruwo_n_a

To answer a question you posed earlier but never got an answer to: upgrading to a better PC will help with interactive performance (rotating the model, section views), but will not help with regeneration performance (any change to any parameter of a feature, sketch, assembly).  Regeneration performance is entirely on our side of the fence.

lana

@ruwo_n_a
I wonder if you could simplify sketches in this part studio https://cad.onshape.com/documents/f4076b884bd69adfaafe9807/w/d82547b7b2d3e1309b28d8dc/e/d0abd5a76977909a1b77c9c9

bradley_sauln

@ruwo_n_a I would give @lana's suggestion a try. You have the ability to look at which features are taking the longest to regenerate (the stopwatch icon on top of the feature tree) to help you take a look at your design approach and how it affects performance.

To help clarify a few concerns of yours: your internet speed/band, in this case, wouldn't have an impact on performance. You can read about how we work here. Our paid offerings do not have a special impact on performance.

Which sketch and which part studio specifically were you having trouble with when trying to project a single point in context? 

ruwo_n_a

well, any part studio that has the main assembly as a context has massive processing time. like, moving around and opening menus runs super smoothly, but the second I make a change, even at the end of the history, it takes a really long time. @lana has found the sketches where it is the worst. I would try and simplify them, but I select a single constraint and press delete, it takes at least 5 minutes the calculate, without even confirming the sketch. i don't feel like spending a week simplifying a single sketch. also, I can't simplify the actual shape that thing has. if you want me to simplify the constraints, I don't think there is much to be done unless individual constraints are better then patterns, and individual numbers are better then parameters. would upgrading to a better PC help? I wouldn't think so since the GPU usage is at like 5% and the CPU at 40% when onshape is doing the calculations. also, other cad programs run this complexity of models fine.

derek_ward

There is definitely something going on with the "ply sides" Part Studio.  If you make any sort of change that needs a regeneration it takes a very long time (much longer that is reported in the Regen Time window, but not 35 minutes as reported by @ruwo_n_a).  Even after suppressing most of the drawings and features (all but Sketch 1, Extrude 1 and Sketch 2), it still takes many minutes for it to load even though it says that it only took 1.31s to regen.

lana

@ruwo_n_a
As for simplifying sketches, I did not mean editing existing sketches - they are too heavy. I'd recommend modifying the approach. E.g. instead of using sketch pattern, you can cut out one hole and use face pattern to replicate it.

MBartlett21

@ruwo_n_a

Try this tip here: https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/36820/#Comment_36820

john_mcclary

I've ran into problems like this before, and as it turned out using different strategies to model a part took my 3 day projects (most of the time was waiting on loading) down to about 2 hours (loading almost completely disappeared). Having everything in 1 sketch is a major no no. For some reason a lot of the sketches have broken in-context references.. I'm not sure if that is because I made a copy or what.

I'll keep poking at this too, and see if it gets better

john_hackington

I understand what you're experiencing @ruwo_n_a. I actually encountered something similar from my model a while back too:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/e3a279a3a61f9eb98e166e1d/w/968bf2f032f637f35846302a/e/49a0e4e7ddd04ec75a83692e

@lana
@bradley_sauln
I'm not sure what you guys see when you clicked on RUWO's link, but this is my screen for the past 10 mins:



I think @derek_ward 's comment is on to something. The time reported in the Regen Time window does not match up to what we are actually experiencing. While Derek also made the observation that, though long, it did not take the 35 mins for him as RUWO did, I think that's just due to the difference between Derek and RUWO's client setup. For me, I can't even load the document.

Putting aside how Onshape "theoretically" works, it does seem that users with different client hardware setups are getting different user experiences.

NeilCooke

I made a copy of the doc and performance was reasonable considering the complexity of the sketches and the in-context refs. @ruwo_n_a can you try that and see if there is any improvement?

konstantin_shiriazdanov

Sometimes I can wait forever loading the simpliest documents with 1 tab and several features in it. It usually happens in Firefox and you have to reload the page several times untill it loads. But in Chrome it usually OK.

dick_van_der_vaart

No problem loading and editing in Western Europe.
There are a lot of red sketches in the document, it seems they are taking more time.
I'm using Chrome and a simple laptop

john_mcclary

The initial loading was slow but runs fine as long as i dont have ply sides open or calculating.

Other part studios are normal

ruwo_n_a

the smaller part studios are normal, as long as I don't have the context set to the main assembly, and that assembly has ply sides. I have not tried a different browser, I'm using Firefox, I will give Chrome a try. I am in western Europe. @dick_van_der_vaart I'm sorry what are red sketches? I'm colorblind, but I should be able to see the difference between sketch blue and red. @lana I will try that, thank you. @NeilCooke do you want me to make a copy of my document? and as for everyone, keep in mind that the 35min mark was when trying to project a point from the main assembly to the first sketch in ply sides, so probably the worst case scenario. there are some broken references, I was going through my usual check to remove them all every couple days, but the performance is just too slow to really do it properly.

john_hackington

Just like to add in more info on my client side for debugging considerations.

I'm always using Chrome, and the problem of not being able to load a document had been encountered across 2 laptops (one Windows 7 and one Windows 10) and 1 thin client (Windows 10) desktop.

I'm located in Asia though. If it's not a client side setup issue, could the problem be the Onshape server serving different locales differently?

dick_van_der_vaart

@ruwo_n_a
This is what I mean

ruwo_n_a

ok thx all for your help, I will try all these suggestions over the next few days, let's see if I can fix it.

Jake_Rosenfeld

@ruwo_n_a

To answer a question you posed earlier but never got an answer to: upgrading to a better PC will help with interactive performance (rotating the model, section views), but will not help with regeneration performance (any change to any parameter of a feature, sketch, assembly).  Regeneration performance is entirely on our side of the fence.

ruwo_n_a

ok, thanks @Jake_Rosenfeld. the interactive performance is great, but the regen sucks. I really like Onshape's top-down assemblies, but if even throwing more money at it can't fix my issue, I think it's time to move to another cad package.

john_mcclary

not money, design strategy.

Like I said, I had the same problem on all of my first 10 or so jobs. Because I kept doing the same mistakes. Eventually I found the strategy that worked. And now the whole job is smooth as butter.

It's a strange learning curve, you may need to rewire your brain a bit. But the end result is a complete model faster than I can even pack and go in solidworks...

john_hackington

Hi @john_mcclary !

Could you share with us some of these strategies that worked well for you? You've mentioned one point that is not keeping everything in 1 sketch. Besides that, what other strategies accelerated your design process and made everything smoother? Getting more elaboration on this will be more helpful for RUWO and also for many of us too. Thank you.

john_mcclary

Sure, Give me some time to sort it all out.
It's on a document that I am not able to share. So i'll put something together that you can access and feel the difference.

brucebartlett

john_mcclary said:

Sure, Give me some time to sort it all out.
It's on a document that I am not able to share. So i'll put something together that you can access and feel the difference.

Looking forward to the webinar 😉

john_mcclary

Heh, maybe i'll make a walk through video too. I have a week vacation coming up.. it'll give me something to do..

john_mcclary

https://youtu.be/EYROXwIP38Y

As a matter of fact I am having the slow problem with a model I am in, Above is a link showing what I was doing to speed it up. It is completely un-edited while I'm at work, so forgive the sloppiness.

It's sheet-metal/configuration based problems, so it isn't completely related to this thread's specific problem.
But you can see how small changes got faster and faster. In the end It was a re-design as I suggested should be done in this thread. (Yes, I follow my own advice even when it means starting over)

lana

@john_mcclary
 Thank you for sharing that video - a great insight into your process.

ruwo_n_a

@john_mcclaryvery handy to know for future designs, however, I need to improve the performance on an already existing design. apparently, it's the history that is an issue, and I don't really want to go back and parametrically change a lot of things anymore. can I turn off the history for certain part studios?

john_mcclary

I would say try adding all the parts from ply into a new part studio as a version. then insert the new parts into the assembly. But you have a lot of incontext. So that won't update any of thoes features.

So far it appears just setting the ply parts to a version in the assembly may help speed up the assembly. It will still be slow if you make an update to the ply parts, but it shouldn't hold you back for other modifications when re-building the assembly.

See how fast it opens for you:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/661b26036b612b3f518aaf8f/w/2ac4c8beddce171e3175f9af/e/4c65e09653b19f24fdf16cd5

javier_perez686

No intentéis mejorar vuestro PC, ni cambiar de navegador, ni poner mejor conexión en casa. El problema de que onshape vaya tan lento es de sus servidores, porque unos días va bien pero la mayaoría de los días va más lento que el teletexto. Onshape desespera y te hace perder el tiempo.

bill_daniels

Onshape's advice, which I resisted initially, was to break up a large project into multiple smaller documents each with a logical sub-assembly.  It seems regeneration speed is not linearly related to document size but slows exponentially with increasing size.  Sub-assemblies are inserted into one large master assembly document where regeneration happens infrequently. When I finally saw the light and took OS's advice, my very large project became easily manageable. 

john_mcclary

I still fight breaking it into "Documents" because versioning constantly would be painful. I tend to model big picture, then start picking away piece by piece, all around the machine. So many small updates then look at the big picture, then zoom back in to some nook and cranny and make another change.