Request: Save and SaveAs - file compression option

Serengeti (Rhino BETA)
1

It would be useful and convenient for the SaveAs and Save commands to have a simple user option for enabling or disabling file compression directly. Currently the user has to go to the Advanced section of Options to make the change. In SaveAs this could be implemented as an check box option.

Save would then use the option which was selected when the fire was first saved or most recently save using SaveAs. The option could be change using SaveAs.

Rationale - In some instances file compression can result in a 20 times increase in save time compared to no file compression while providing minimal reduction in file size. In other instances the reduction in file size is large enough that the increased save time is worthwhile.

2

Hi David -

Your other post was a real-world example of the latter - compression leading to a significantly smaller file and significantly increase in saving time. Do you have a real-world example of the former - an extremely huge increase in save time without a noticeable decrease in file size?

I was somewhat hoping for a discoverable setting in the Rhino options that a user would consciously set and then forget…

Ref.: RH-64364 - Options: Expose the UseCompressionWhenSaving setting in the UI
-wim

3

Only if you call a 10% reduction in file size to 90% of the original file size significant. For me it is noticeable but not significant decrease in size. I consider an increase in save time from several seconds to over a minute a huge increase in save time. (I edited the previous post to make it clear it was a 10% reduction to 90% of original size.)

4

bumping this

probably like many, I have Rhino.Options.Advanced.UseCompressionWhenSaving set to false, since I don’t usually want to pay that price

however, quite often I need to share a model, and it would be nice to have the compression switch exposed next to the save small one, or compression automatically applied when saving small, or whatever other arrangement allows usually saving w/out compression, but enabling it when saving small

this file, saved small in both cases, has just a box, a sphere, four lights, two materials, three procedural textures (so, no texture files referenced), no environments – everything else purged

image

looking inside the uncompressed one, there is around 60k of xml, and various other bits, but it is dominated by about 3.3mb of this

image
image888×843 20 KB

5

for the time being here are two scripts you can put in a toolbar button

toggle file compression:

_noecho
!-_RunPythonScript (
import Rhino
Settings = Rhino.PlugIns.PlugIn.GetPluginSettings(Rhino.RhinoApp.CurrentRhinoId, False)
Options = Settings.GetChild('Options')
Advanced = Options.GetChild('Advanced')
UseCompressionWhenSaving = Advanced.GetBool('UseCompressionWhenSaving')
Advanced.SetBool('UseCompressionWhenSaving', not UseCompressionWhenSaving)
print('UseCompressionWhenSaving: %s'%Advanced.GetBool('UseCompressionWhenSaving'))
)

save small compressed:

_noecho
!-_RunPythonScript (
import Rhino
Settings = Rhino.PlugIns.PlugIn.GetPluginSettings(Rhino.RhinoApp.CurrentRhinoId, False)
Options = Settings.GetChild('Options')
Advanced = Options.GetChild('Advanced')
UseCompressionWhenSaving = Advanced.GetBool('UseCompressionWhenSaving')
Advanced.SetBool('UseCompressionWhenSaving', True)
Rhino.RhinoApp.RunScript('-_saveas _savesmall=yes _browse _enter ', True)
Advanced.SetBool('UseCompressionWhenSaving', UseCompressionWhenSaving)
)