Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[abmvd7]

I am trying to use pathfinder on an existing building, but it seems pathfinder is having trouble handling a large scale project.  Because the building has several different floor elevations for every floor, my 21 story building must have over 100 different floors.  After importing about 50 the program slowed down significantly and it keeps freezing up every time I try to delete some elements.

Any advice?

[Charlie Thornton]

I've never attempted a model with more than 10 floors.  If you send the files and instructions needed to reproduce the crash to support@thunderheadeng.com, we may be able to figure out what's going on.

I've already added a feature to the next release that will allow you to move objects between "floors" (in terms of the tree), so we should be able to get back to a 21 story building having 21 floors as soon as that's available.

When you say importing 50 floors, do you mean using the Extract Floors tool 50 times, or do you mean using the Import action for part of a DXF/FDS file?

[abmvd7]

I unfortuntely cannot send you the files due to nature of the project but once I get the error again I can supply the information provided.

I am using the import action with a DXF file.  I haven't used the extract floor tool.  Whould that allow me to import portions of a floor to a different elevation?

[Charlie Thornton]

The Extract Floor tool works with FDS imports.  It lets you type in an elevation and it figures out where the floor is, at that elevation (z), based on the FDS geometry.  We are actually putting the finishing touches on the Extract Floor tool for PSM and DXF exports, but that won't be available for a couple weeks.

[abmvd7]

 Just to provide a little more information.....I noticed that the command box that opens with the program shows "Memory Full of Not Enough Memory" (can't remember exact words).  I would have to assume that is what is slowing down the program and ultimately causing it to freeze.

[Charlie Thornton]

Ah, there we go.  Big DXF's can create some memory issues.  The workaround is to increase Pathfinder's memory limit.  Here's how:

(1) Open C:Program FilesPathfinder II (Beta)un.bat in a text editor (e.g. notepad, not Word)
(2) On the line that looks like:

"%DIR%jreinjava.exe" -Xmx512m -Dsun.java2d.noddraw -Djava.library.path=.;lib;lib/rlm -cp %JARS% merlin.Run

Change -Xmx512m argument to -Xmx1024m.  This will increase the memory limit to 1 GB (up from 512 MB).

"%DIR%jreinjava.exe" -Xmx1024m -Dsun.java2d.noddraw -Djava.library.path=.;lib;lib/rlm -cp %JARS% merlin.Run

(3) Save run.bat and run Pathfinder

Also, don't increase the memory limit beyond about 2/3 of your system's memory.  If the number is too big, Pathfinder will fail to start.

Let me know if that helps.

- Charlie

[abmvd7]

I took the steps you outlined below and I got an error message that access was denied. Any advice?

[Charlie Thornton]

Could you post a few additional details or a screen shot?  I'm not clear where the error message is coming from.

- Charlie

[abmvd7]

Nevermind....I got it to work.  Thanks.