Solid Edge Improving STEP file import performance in Solid Edge

How to improve the STEP file import performance in Solid Edge?

There are very few STEP options that will improve the overall STEP import performance. The most impact you can have on translation performance is hardware configuration.

Most STEP options that you turn on/off to improve translation performance will then generally negatively impact the quality for the actual translated geometry which generally is not the desired result. For example you could turn off 'Simplify Geometry' and 'Heal and Stitch' as generally these options require extra processing. However you may not be happy with the quality of the imported model if you do turn these options off in an attempt to improve performance.

You can set Enable Logging=Off to improve the STEP performance as the logging then does not have to be captured and written to disk. Depending on the size of the data being imported this may only minimally improve import performance but if it is critical to reduce the import time as much as possible then set this to off.

If your workstation has enough RAM to support it, then set DoNotSave=On to improve translation performance as the time to save the child files in an imported assembly are then not automatically saved to disk, thereby avoiding the delay of writing multiple files to disk.

Other things to consider to improve STEP import performance include, in no particular order of importance:

• Faster CPUs instead of multiple cores.

• More RAM and faster RAM.

• Storing the STEP file on the local disk not the network.

• Saving the Solid Edge file output to the local disk not the network.

• Using a SSD disk for the local disk(s).

• Set swap file size to 2X RAM for both the minimum and maximum settings.

• Not running any other programs while Solid Edge is importing so that as much RAM as possible is available to the import process.

• If dealing with large, long imports then consider a standalone workstation with all other TSR programs removed.

• Properly configuring anti-virus software so that Solid Edge and Solid Edge temp files are not scanned while the STEP import is processing.

The most impact you can have on improving STEP import performance is ensuring that all of the files are on the local workstation and are not having to go across the network to/from file server storage.

Once the STEP files are being processed on the local workstation disk, then having SSD will further greatly improve the performance.