[Archived phorum post from squ1.com v2 by craines]

Hi Giuly.

It really depends how complex your zones are for how long the calculation will take. A better indication of time for your model to calc things, is the number of objects it contains -- you can find this number by looking in the Status Bar in the bottom left of the ECOTECT window. If you have no objects selected in your model, the number will read 0/XXX, where 0 is the number of selected objects and XXX is the total number of objects in your model.

One way to reduce calc time, is to ensure you have no redundant geometry in your model. For example if you imported a DXF file and traced over it to get your 28 zones, then it would be an excellent idea to delete the imported DXF geometry once you are finished with it and before you start doing calcs. DXFs are often quite complex (even if just made up of lines) and even though you may have the zones these objects are on as OFF, ECOTECT still has to test every object in a model to work out whether it should consider it for the calc being done.

Hope this helps.
Regards,
Caroline

Caroline Raines
Square One research Pty Ltd

[Archived phorum post from squ1.com v2 by Paul]

ahaaaa - that explains alot, so even if we swithc zones off as the design developes they will still influence the calc time?

[Archived phorum post from squ1.com v2 by craines]

Well in a way yes -- ECOTECT has to spend a bit of time (miniscule by human measures) on each object (even if off) to just ask, "should I consider this object ?"
Generally with a normal thermal model you dont get the number of objects in it that cause the time to be that much increased. However when you import geometry, DXFs in particular can be very detailed with lots of tiny inefficient line segments and the like -- they may not look like much, but DXFs are notorious for being "heavy" in this way.

Did you have a DXF (or similar) in your model ? Did I guess right ?

Regards,
Caroline

Caroline Raines
Square One research Pty Ltd

[Archived phorum post from squ1.com v2 by Paul]

yes I did, will delete it now

[Archived phorum post from squ1.com v2 by Giuly]

I deleted DXF files and now the thermal analysis is fast!!!

Thank you, Caroline.
Regards.
Giuly