Modeling
About Archicad's design tools, element connections, modeling concepts, etc.

Module File Size

Brett Brown
Advocate
What should be the module file size of a line? 1300kb? is this right?
I have been wondering why my Detail module file sizes are so big. The full detail with hundreds of lines and fills is 1380kb. So why is the file size starting off so big? What could be causing this?
Doesn't change no matter what way I make the module either, publishing, saving from clipboard, or saving selection as a module.
Imac, Big Sur AC 20 NZ, AC 25 Solo UKI,
12 REPLIES 12
Anonymous
Not applicable
Brett,

Most of that size would be made up of attached libraries, layers etc.... all the thing that you put into your Prototype. Our empty Prototype drawing (V12) is 4627Kb.

Fills appear to be the most memory hungry element that you can add to a drawing from my experience.
Anonymous
Not applicable
I'm not quite sure what you are asking. Is the comparison between a module of one line at 1300K and many lines/fills at 1380K? If so that does seem odd. Most modules I've seen are pretty small (4K to 200K) unless they've got lots of stuff in them. Is this true for all your modules?

Wayne, I think you are referring to PLN files. The modules only contain used attributes and so have very little overhead.
Brett Brown
Advocate
Hi Matthew, Yes many lines and fills is 1380kb, so I tested one line and that was 1300kb, just to see if it was fills making such a large file. I don't know why they are so large, even just one line. Most of the manufacture mod files that I download are under 50kb. I'm trying to save all my own similar ones thinking they should be that small. What's the process to making a small 2D detail mod file?
Imac, Big Sur AC 20 NZ, AC 25 Solo UKI,
Anonymous
Not applicable
Are you suing AC13? I haven't checked module sizes in that yet. Maybe the overhead has increased. I suppose another possibility is the block size on your hard drive. I don't recall how NTFS formats a really large drive. Do you have other file types that are smaller? Such as a small text file.
Brett Brown
Advocate
Yes AC 13, I have text files on hard drive at 4kb. All my published mod files ended up all around the 1300 to 1400kb. Do you think this is normal?
If I save them as an object file they are only about 35kb. Any disadvantages you see going the object way? You can just explode them if they have to be tweaked for that project.
Imac, Big Sur AC 20 NZ, AC 25 Solo UKI,
Barry Kelly
Moderator
I just saved a line and the MOD file is only 37KB.
Are you sure you are saving it as a module and not a PLN?

Select the line, FILE menu > EXTERNAL CONTENT > SAVE SELECTION AS MODULE.

This will ensure just the line is saved as a module.
Using FILE > SAVE AS (MOD file type) will svae the whole PLN as a module.

Barry.
One of the forum moderators.
Versions 6.5 to 27
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Brett Brown
Advocate
Yes Barry did exactly that way (and others) and one selected line saved using "save selection as module" came out as 1.3mb. My published mods were on Vista 64 (which were 1.3mb average). Now on Win 7 64 and new instal of 13 and seems nothing changed.
Imac, Big Sur AC 20 NZ, AC 25 Solo UKI,
Erika Epstein
Booster
I drew one line, selected just the line then
File>External Contentl>Save Selection as Module
and the module is 118KB.
Erika
Architect, Consultant
MacBook Pro Retina, 15-inch Yosemite 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Mac OSX 10.11.1
AC5-18
Onuma System

"Implementing Successful Building Information Modeling"
Anonymous
Not applicable
When you save the module, click the options button and check and see if compress file is checked.