Visio Stalls When Converting AutoCAD Files

[aisaacson]

I have Visio Professional 2002 and I am trying to convert floor plans saved
in AutoCAD 2002. No matter what I try to do, this conversion will run for up
to 48 hours on my computer yet it never completes the conversion. Any
thoughts on why this might happen? Are some files simply to complex for
Visio to convert?

Thanks

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

Yes, some files are too complex to convert. An AutoCAD drawing may have
tens of thousands of entities in it. That is a lot for Visio to process
considering that Visio shapes are much richer than most AutoCAD entities.
The most important factor for conversion performance is the amount of memory
available on the system. When working with large CAD drawings, you may need
1GB or more of RAM. If Visio runs low on memory during conversion, it will
use the disk drive as another storage area. This will cause the conversion
to take as much as 100 times longer.

The best recommendation is to simplify the file you want to convert. Only
convert the layers you need, and convert them one at a time if they are big.
If you have access to AutoCAD, look in the file for hatch patterns and get
rid of them (or move them to a different layer). Hatches get exploded into
a bunch of tiny lines in Visio. Visio 2003 improves conversion performance
of small and medium size drawings over Visio 2002. However, it is still
subject to the extreme memory demands of large CAD drawings.

--
Mark Nelson
Office Graphics - Visio
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.