Splitting Project into multiple visio drawings - D-Tools Forum

Daniel · 03-04-2010, 09:28 AM

Hi Guys.

Thought i might share this with you, if it helps someone, cool. if not, well, sorry

im going to use the term "project" for the entire system
ill use "drawing" for a .vsd file, and "page" for the individual tabs within a drawing

I have been coming across more and more big projects, where a single visio drawing with multiple pages, runs very slow and its a nightmare to get anything done as the system is so slow. (even on my big serious computer)

we have found, that splitting up a big project, into multiple visio drawings, speeds the process up so there is no noticable lag whatsoever.

the downside is, "off page references" cannot be used.

to split out drawing's we check out the example1.vsd in dtools

(lets pretend we have plan views, head end, and room schematics in this one drawing for the project, and its running slow as there is multiple pages. lets split the project into 3 drawings. Plan Views, Head End and Room Schematics)

In explorer, open your local copy of example1.vsd

(mine is kept @ Z:\My Documents\D-Tools SI5 Projects\Client Number 1\System 1)

In explorer, find the example1.vsd and copy and paste it into the same directory that example1.vsd is in

now there will be 3 files in there

example1.dtl
example1.vsd
copy of example1.vsd

in windows change the "copy of example1.vsd" to something more meaningfull

ill rename it to "Plan Views.vsd"

now, in D-tools Navigator, click on “View All Projects”

choose the project in question, (Client Number 1\System 1) and on the mleft hand side there will be an option

“Add a file to this project”

Click on this and browse to your newly renamed “Plan Views.vsd” and click open

Back in the project grid, you will now be able to right click on (Client Number 1\System 1) and there will be 2 drawings available

Open the “Plan Views.vsd”, delete the pages from the drawing that are NOT plan views, save and close. DO NOT DELETE THE PRODUCTS IN THE PROJECT DATAMATRIX, ONLY THE PAGES IN THE DRAWING

The equipment will all remain in the project data matrix if done this way, and the plan view speed will be increased.

Now, repeat the steps in italics for the Head End drawing.

That will leave you with 3 vsd files available to open, and edit, in d-tools.

Example1.vsd
Plan Views.vsd
Head End.vsd

Instead of copying in explorer to make the last file, go to the “selected project details” TAB (Client Number 1\System 1) in the d-tools navigator

Find the example1.vsd, right click and rename it to “Room Schematics.vsd”

Now, the project is split over 3 drawings and everything is super speedy.

This may not be of any interest to anyone, but this came about as I have a massive project, and currently I have 12 .vsd files. With 20 pages in each drawing, when im finished this project in 6 months time I fully expect there to be at least 30 pages in each of these drawings.

Without splitting my drawings, my big serious design workstation crawled.

Good news, SPEED, and d-tools will still track duplicate wire connections across multiple drawings, which is very handy.

Bad news, I seem to only be able to have one drawing of the project open at any one time. Custom off page references do not work across multiple drawings.

Daniel · 03-04-2010, 09:29 AM

oh, i searched for something similar detailing this.. if its here, and been posted by someone else, apologies.

**Dave Kirn** · 03-04-2010, 04:51 PM

Daniel -

Thanks for the great post. This is the same process that we use on just about all of our projects, and I think a few others do as well but no one has ever took the time to document the process.

Daniel · 03-05-2010, 08:09 AM

i think i documented it as much for myself as others

i only really need it when a project grows in scope.

for a new project i set it up correctly