Very large OBJ file is not usable in Dimension

[Mike Feeney]

Hello,

I've created several beautiful renders of products successfully in Dimension, but have hit a roadblock with one particular model.  

This file is an OBJ, approx. 4.3Gb in size.  It's a product designed in Autodesk Inventor, shrinkwrapped and exported to OBJ.  During export we used the medium resolution preset for the OBJ.  

The resulting OBJ file is huge, but Adobe Dimension will import it.  I get the file importing progress bar, and when finished, it appears that the OBJ imported successfully.  It shows up in the Scene panel as expected, but the model never shows in the preview window.  If I select the model in the Scene panel and try to move it or perform any other transformation the software grinds to a halt. 

We've tried working with this on a few different machines, including a standalone tower built specifically for rendering.  Computer horsepower shouldn't be the problem, but again - I recognize the file is unusually huge.  

My question:  Is there a max file size or limitation that we're hitting with Dimension?  Or any other general advise on how to work with really large OBJ file sizes?

I'm considering trying to simplify the OBJ using Autodesk Meshmixer to see if that will help.  Or simply using a lower resolution setting during the OBJ export.  But also thought I'd try to find out whether there's a hard limit within Dimension that I should be aware of.

Thank you!

[Ussnorway · Accepted solution]

My question:  Is there a max file size or limitation that we're hitting with Dimension? 

1/2 your free Ram is how much Dimension will import to the screen... rendor takes even more Ram so your first question is "how long is string" and the correct answer = as long as you need it to be.

It shows up in the Scene panel as expected, but the model never shows in the preview window

it could also be that the file type is not importing correct... you didn't post a screengrab so its hard to tell because AutoDesk Inventor isn't really a standard tool i.e, Bmp files are one possible cause or your system simply timed out

if you want to share the file I'll take a look at it

[Mike Feeney]

Thanks for your response!  It makes sense that Dimension would allow the file to be as large as needed (provided system RAM can handle it).  I appreciate your offer to take a look at the file - I and others on my team are going to do some more experimenting first and see what we can come up with, possibly including exporting with different settings from Inventor.