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slon
Participant
August 4, 2026
Question

Performance issue: the created document is very large

  • August 4, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 26 views

When editing documents containing large numbers of paths, anchor points, gradients, and transparency effects:

Steps:

  1. Open a complex AI document
  2. Select multiple objects
  3. Move or scale objects

Actual result:

  • Mouse input and visual response are not synchronized
  • Object movement has noticeable delay
  • Canvas refresh rate decreases

Expected result:

Object manipulation should remain responsive in real time.

Current impact:

  • Reduced design efficiency
  • Increased waiting time
  • Interrupted creative workflow
  • Delayed project delivery

Especially affects:

  • Branding projects
  • Packaging design
  • Illustration work
  • Advertising design
  • Large print documents
  • Improve Illustrator rendering architecture.

    Current:

    Editing one object may trigger full canvas recalculation.

    Improvement:

    Use incremental rendering to update only changed areas.

    Technology:

  • Dirty Region Rendering
  • Incremental Rendering
  • GPU Accelerated Rendering
  • Expand GPU acceleration for:

  • Path rendering
  • Stroke preview
  • Transparency calculation
  • Live effects preview
  • Goal:

    Reduce CPU workload and improve real-time interaction.

  • Some operations still rely heavily on the main thread.

    Recommended separation:

  • Rendering thread
  • File loading thread
  • Better utilization of modern multi-core CPUs.

  • Effect calculation thread
  • Preview generation thread
  •  
  • Implement:

  • Object cache
  • Preview cache
  • Effect cache
  • Avoid repeated calculations.

    Example:

    Moving an object should not require recalculating all effects

  • We hope Adobe Illustrator can maintain its professional vector capabilities while adopting a more modern performance architecture.

    The goal is to provide designers with:

  • Smoother object manipulation
  • More stable zooming
  • Performance should become a core part of the Illustrator experience.

  •  
  • Faster previews
  • An uninterrupted creative workflow
  •  
  •  

    3 replies

    Ton Frederiks
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    August 4, 2026

    @slon Can you share a specific example? This looks like an AI generated post.

    slon
    slonAuthor
    Participant
    August 4, 2026

    The 24-page brochure lags when zooming in and out. After zooming in, editing the text, and immediately zooming back out, frame drops occur

    Ton Frederiks
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    August 4, 2026

    Illustrator is a Vector Graphics Editor and not optimized for documents like books and long brochures like InDesign is.

    The speed at which you can work depends also on the amount of memory in your computer and the graphics card you are using.