[rks171]

Is there anything I can do to improve the speed at which a model is visualized? I imported a rather large CAD drawing into starccm+ and now I'm combining boundaries, but it is so unbelievably slow and choppy to rotate around the model and select and join boundaries. I start starccm+ with the -mesa option as one measure. Otherwise, starccm+ crashes when opening the model scene. Is there anything else I could do to reduce detail or something so that it isn't so choppy?

[saisrikar]

Originally Posted by rks171

Is there anything I can do to improve the speed at which a model is visualized? I imported a rather large CAD drawing into starccm+ and now I'm combining boundaries, but it is so unbelievably slow and choppy to rotate around the model and select and join boundaries. I start starccm+ with the -mesa option as one measure. Otherwise, starccm+ crashes when opening the model scene. Is there anything else I could do to reduce detail or something so that it isn't so choppy?

I believe a parallel session should help in this regard. Try and see if it makes any difference.

You could also Re-tesellate the imported model to Low density if you dont mind some loss of geometry detail to reduce the initial face count.

[abdul099]

I have to disagree saisrikar in a point: A parallel session will not improve visualization performance.

All you can try is start with less triangles or less faces / parts etc. Or purchase a better graphics card, which means "spend a lot of money for a little performance increase and get angry because you didn't invest the money in beer (that helps a lot when you have to wait for two boundaries to be combined)".

Sometimes it's better to combine all faces and split them afterwards. And very often it makes more sense to reduce model complexity already in the CAD software before importing it into Star-CCM+. Maybe that's an option for you.

[saisrikar]

Originally Posted by abdul099

I have to disagree saisrikar in a point: A parallel session will not improve visualization performance.

All you can try is start with less triangles or less faces / parts etc. Or purchase a better graphics card, which means "spend a lot of money for a little performance increase and get angry because you didn't invest the money in beer (that helps a lot when you have to wait for two boundaries to be combined)".

Sometimes it's better to combine all faces and split them afterwards. And very often it makes more sense to reduce model complexity already in the CAD software before importing it into Star-CCM+. Maybe that's an option for you.

Few of the best ways is definitely to get a good graphics card and also trade off with the initial face count. If the faces are split, its better to combine them and work with it. Same goes for the Curves !

I think I have had some luck with parallel sessions with opening geometry which contained huge face count and complicated features. However, I had not done any time keeping as such at that time. One of my seniors at work had actually suggested that it should do good ( CD-adapco Office). However, I can confirm this again.

[saisrikar]

Hello,
@abdul:
You are correct, Parallel session does not help very prominently during any kind of pre-processing operation. Just confirmed it.

Thanks

[rks171]

Thanks for the advice from the both of you. I will try to re-tesselate at a lower density. When I actually mesh the model, will that bring back the resolution of the features that I lost by using a lower density? Will it also make it impossible to visualize the model after I mesh it?

[abdul099]

As long as there is CAD data available for the parts, you will not loose information due to triangulating with a lower density. All vertices will be projected back to the CAD surface while meshing.
Please note, this applies only as long as you don't perform manual surface repair like imprint, intersect, project vertices etc.

And yes, once you've wrapped or meshed your geometry, your face count will be significantly increased and therefore the visualization will be slower. It should not get impossible, maybe you just have to reduce complexity by not putting all geometry details in the displayers.