File size remain big after deleting ALL

[mp3-250]

We started to simplify the market components our engineers download from internet as they are often bloated with useless details. Especially electrical compoments and plastic parts are quite heavy.

I had a flow sensor assy that was like 10+MB and we got it down to less than 900kb. the geometry was reduced to the essential shapes without parting lines drafts small features etc.

we noticed that opening the simplified parasolid gave use a 300kb file for one component, while importing the same simplified parasolid in the sldprt created by our engineer importing the downloaded data inside our part template, will bring the file size at over 3MB after completely removing the original (heavy) solid bodies from the tree. (not the delete body command)

I tried to turn off tessallation, OLE embedding inside the solidworks file, forced rebuild, check on rebuild on...

Deleting everything and leaving an empty file still give us a stunnIng 2.8MB for what is supposed to be a 150kb empty part template.

Any idea of what remains inside the part file??

[Peter De Vlieger]

I don't have a solution.
Things to try if you haven't done so yet to get parts smaller:
- check to remove display states as well as non needed configs
- purge cached config data
- and just re-saving a part, yep saving the same part without changing anything can make a part smaller with a factor of 1/3rd smaller to 1/10th smaller in my experience.

It's been a gripe of mine for over a decade that Solidworks is very wasteful with file sizes and that they don't give a crap about it.

E.G.: we got our PRTDOT down to 27kb. This may sound good until you realize that it means it's 27.000 bytes to store some variables and contains not one single feature or other user added element. FYI, the original Pacman game was only 24kb, the entire game including sounds.

On top of it comes the fact that SW has been busy the last few years to make things load quicker but they do that by storing even more data in the files so that file sizes explode. Perhaps with their entire push to cloud and them having to start paying for storage space that they finally get some proper coding done. Won't hold my breath.

[SPerman]

Under document properties, model display, see if these two items are checked:

[Frederick_Law]

I won't try to "fix" the big file.
Just export to Parasolid and import to new file.
Replace old one.

[mp3-250]

I won't try to "fix" the big file.
Just export to Parasolid and import to new file.
Replace old one.

we are already doing it, but file size could get unnoticed and I was wondering about the cause and howvto avoid it.

our objective is to simplify the 3d models to avoid our assemblies to be graphically bloated and slow.
But sometimes it is better to use the old file to keep the mates from exploding, insert a simplified body and swap the mates.
my team is not in charge of design, but sometimes we need to swap the bloated model while already in use with minimum impact on the design side.

[mp3-250]

Under document properties, model display, see if these two items are checked:

image.png

tried both no effect on the size unfortunately

[mp3-250]

I don't have a solution.
Things to try if you haven't done so yet to get parts smaller:
- check to remove display states as well as non needed configs
- purge cached config data
- and just re-saving a part, yep saving the same part without changing anything can make a part smaller with a factor of 1/3rd smaller to 1/10th smaller in my experience.

It's been a gripe of mine for over a decade that Solidworks is very wasteful with file sizes and that they don't give a crap about it.

E.G.: we got our PRTDOT down to 27kb. This may sound good until you realize that it means it's 27.000 bytes to store some variables and contains not one single feature or other user added element. FYI, the original Pacman game was only 24kb, the entire game including sounds.

On top of it comes the fact that SW has been busy the last few years to make things load quicker but they do that by storing even more data in the files so that file sizes explode. Perhaps with their entire push to cloud and them having to start paying for storage space that they finally get some proper coding done. Won't hold my breath.

I forgot the purge configuration data, I will try it.
I have forced rebuilt and saved the file a lot of times with no change at all. It does not go under 2.8MB

[m2shell]

I forgot the purge configuration data, I will try it.
I have forced rebuilt and saved the file a lot of times with no change at all. It does not go under 2.8MB

Ballooning file size with poor purge functionality is one of my biggest complaints with SW. My drawing files can explode in size and really drag on my computer's speed. I can cure it by copying a sheet and pasting into a new empty Drawing but then I lose Custom properties etc.

[AlexLachance]

Have you trying doing a save-as to create a new file? I've had files go down drastically in size with a simple save-as.

[DanPihlaja]

Every single file that I download from the internet, i run through what @zxys001 refers to as a "parasolid wash".

I save the part out as a parasolid, then open the parasolid and overwrite the original file.

This completely strips everything away that isn't geometry (and without an actual translation algorithm as well!)

[mp3-250]

Update: purge all configuration does not reduce the size.