Does SolidWorks RealView Effect Performance?

Recently, at the SolidWorks Technical Summit in Baltimore, MD, Richard Doyle gave an excellent presentation about SolidWorks RealView.

In the latest version of SolidWorks, version 2008, changes were made to the ways Colors are applied to Assemblies and Parts. I won't detail all the changes here; if you want more information about how to apply Colors to Assemblies and Parts, check the Help files in 2008 SolidWorks.

What I am interested is a statement make by Richard; I'm paraphasing here, Richard said "RealView has no effect on performance in SolidWorks"

OK, I thought about that all the way home, on the flight back. I couldn't wait to test this out myself.

Here's how I tested this;

I used the "PunchHolder" from Anna Woods.
I Rebuilt and Saved the Part file with RealView and Shadows On
I Rebuilt and Saved the Part file with RealView and Shadows Off.
I Rebuilt and Saved the Part file with "Use Software Open GL Enabled".

The Rebuild times in all 3 cases were exactly the same; 111.36sec

So, Richard was correct. It appears that RealView has no effect on performance in 2008 SolidWorks SP3.1 Interesting!

Cheers,
Devon
http://www.3-ddesignsolutions.com

*Update: June  27, 2008*

See the Comments by Rob Rodriguez and Kholish, I did not consider the effect RealView has on the Opening and Rotation of SolidWorks files. RealView does slow down the Rotation. How can that be quantified?

Devon

Comments

[Devon Sowell]

Hi Jason-

Excellent information, thanks for sharing. Since I don't use RealView, I wasn't aware of these effects.

Anything that slows down my productivity is not good.

Again, a method to benchmark and quantify this is needed.

Devon

[Jason]

Hi Devon,

I would disagree with the statement "RealView has no effect on performance in SolidWorks". It actually can, but to differing degrees depending on what you are doing. If you use a RealView material that does not have any mapped surface texturing, then you probably won't see any rebuild time increases. However, if you use a material that has mapped textures like "Wrought Stainless Steel" and you have many model surfaces, or just complex surfaces, you will likely see a decrease in performance while RealView is turned on. I usually work with RealView on because it is a nicer environment to work in (if you don't use the SW default scenes), but on some models, I have to work with it off until I'm done modifying it. Otherwise I would spend much more time completing my design.

The thing is, when you are looking at your rebuild times, you are not really looking at the total time it takes for it to calculate BOTH the features and the graphics. That is why it is called "Feature Statistics". There is no line item listed in Feature Statistics for RealView calculation time. This is why regardless of whether RV is on or off, it will show you the same rebuild time. It is only showing the time it takes for the features to rebuild. RV is calculated after they are rebuilt.

I verified this on one of the recent models I had been working with on which I had to keep turning the RV off. When I opened it, I rolled-back to one of the earlier features and then back to the end. When I did this with RV off, it was quicker than with it on, at least for the first instance. It appears that sometimes once SW has calculated the mapping for a RV texture in a given state, it will remember it the next time you go back, thus making it rebuild faster. But this is not always the case since I then opened an old file that I had created 8 years ago of "Silly Putty". This is a "stretchable" model with only two sweeps in it. I applied the "Wrought Stainless Steel" material with RV turned on and found that with RV off, it would rollback to just before the second sweep almost instantly. Rolling back to the end would also rebuild almost instantly. But with RV turned on it takes about 5 seconds to fully rebuild, and a whopping 10 seconds to roll back to the end. This is consistent no matter how many times you go back and forth. I even saved the file in SW2008 format (as "Steely Putty") to make sure that wasn't the issue.

The fact of the matter is; SW RealView has to calculate the mapping of textures for all of the surfaces on a given model, which may take some time depending the model, RV texture applied as well as your graphics card. You may want to consider this when working on some models.

Jason

[Devon T. Sowell]

Hi Matt-

I wonder if a "Macro Feature" that would Rotate the model would work? Sort of like Mike Wilson's "Ship In A Bottle" Macro Feature.

Devon

[fcsuper]

Thanks for adding this info guys. It looks like it needs further testing.

[Devon T. Sowell]

You see, I didn't consider rotation because I always have RealView turned off.

To me, the RealView files look too shiny.

Devon

[Devon T. Sowell]

Hello Rob and Kholish-

OK, good point, I didn't consider that. I wonder how I could quantify the "rotation" of a SolidWorks file and how RealView effects the rotation ease/speed?

Any suggestions?

Devon

[rob rodriguez]

Correct RV will no effect on CPU performance but I've found RV can casue a big impact on graphics performance. Zooming, rotating, panning, hiding parts, etc all seem to be slowed when RV is enabled.

[Kholish]

Hi Devon,

In my experience...
If you only compare using rebuild time the result will be no difference between use and not use real view. Because we not rotate or apply movement.

But if we compare rotate time, I think use real view is more slower.

Try to open a big assy ( at least 50 parts ), then rotate the assembly.