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Shape Builder Tool Slow Down

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
October 2, 2017
2 replies
20267 views

I am encountering a MAJOR slowdown issue when using the Shape Builder tool. I was just experimenting with a group of circles, and each time I subtracted or combined a shape, the process would progressively take more and more time. It has now reached a point where it is taking 3-4 minutes to do this, and am even experiencing major slowdown when simply attempting to change its color.

Has anyone else encountered this type of issue at all?

Thank you in advance for any help you could send my way.

iMac (27", Late 2012)

3.4 GHz Intel Core i7

32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2048 MB

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Correct answer Monika Gause

12 paths shouldn't be a problem.

Can you check if there are cloned paths (that is two identical paths exactly on top of each other)?

That is something I have seen to slow down the shapebuilder dramatically.

Y

Yuzhen22642435pcx6

Participant

I don't know what causes this problem, I ran into it just now and it seems to have created an exponential number of layers.

I fixed it by selecting the duplicated layers and merging it down with the pathfinder rather than selecting the layers and deleting them individually. I am trying to reproduce the issue, but I can't get it to happen again. I don't think it's due to 'corruption' at all, my guess it's something to do with paths being overlapped before using the shape tool.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

How many paths in your case? When there are too many paths, the shapebuilder tool will be slow.

Y

Yuzhen22642435pcx6

Participant

Hi Monika, it looks like it's created a couple dozen copies of the same shape. The second image shows a glimpse of the ducplicated shapes created afterward. These were all in the same compound path before I copied and pasted them out to their own layers for demonstration purposes.

It got progressively slower the more I used the tool so I'm assuming it doubled up on the previous results as I was using it. The third image shows how a bunch of duplicated shapes were created, I unstacked a couple to show that they are the same.

I'm trying to replicate it the problem again and it doesn't seem to work when I start with duplicates of the same shape.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

A group of circles means how many precisely?

P

Pixel AlchemystAuthor

Participating Frequently

Began with 12 and ended up with this:

Monika Gause

Community Expert

So... I opened up the layer and did indeed find multiple duplicate paths that were stacked on top of one another. I basically started at the bottom of the stack, and deleted one sub-layer at a time until I was left with one compound path with had what I was looking for.

Why does Illustrator do this? Instead of "combining" shapes, it replicates them on top of one another, thus creating a cluster-f**k of paths and shapes on top of what you are attempting to build. I just don't understand the logic in this. If you combine a shape, it should become one compound path - not a separate path on top of what you just combined.

Sorry if I came across a bit frustrated, but this is unacceptable. The Shape Builder Tool should be just that; combine these shapes to become one shape.

I know this is not your fault, and I do appreciate the workaround, but it is just odd that the tool would act in this way.

Thank you, Monika, for the help.

Cheers.

The shape builder tool doesn't create duplicates. It combines its shapes by consuming the original paths. The original paths are gone afterwards.

The copying must have happened before you applied the shapebuilder tool.

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