AutoCAD Dwg Optimization & Size Cleaning

You need to optimize dwg to reduce the file size of your dwg drawings on AutoCAD and make them open faster. Thanks to optimization, unnecessary groups, blocks, xrefs, points and many unused data will be eliminated. You will have such a small, fast and fluid dwg project.

Take a backup before the big clean!

While doing the operations, things can get very messy. Therefore, first of all, make sure to make a backup of your dwg file and keep it safely. I keep it on an external memory (flash disk) or online storage tools (G-Drive) for security purposes.

Learn General Explosion Tip for Dwg Optimization!

Never copy an external furnishing or similar block into your project! To open your Autocad dwg file quickly and easily, create a new dwg file and explode, layer and block the furnishing here and copy it to your drawing!

I hear you ask, what’s the use of this? Contrary to popular belief, AutoCAD is a dynamic program. Since it is paid, there are many alternatives. For this reason, the actual source of the files you import may be a different incompatible CAD program. Even if Autocad is used, when the block is exploded, only line, polyne etc. drawing paths are dead. Macros, other memory blocks and hidden references are scattered along with the visible part. This will seriously slow down your drawing in the long run.

Add only the files you touch to your drawing!

Unnecessary Geometry Cleanup

Everything you see on the AutoCAD screen is geometry. The furnishing pieces you copy from left to right while creating your drawing may be larger than you think. Sometimes you see dots or line segments far away. The main reason is that the blocks you import from outside have sub-blocks. Since these blocks are placed with different references, they scatter far away as soon as they explode. All these formations increase the dwg file size instead of reducing it.

How do you clean up these small geometries that I’m not using? Select your entire drawing with Ctrl + A, then exclude only your own project with shift. Delete with the Delete button! That’s all, you’ve already started reducing your file size by deleting unused drawings.

Delete Invisible, Empty Objects

In order to draw faster in your AutoCAD works, we can sometimes create empty, undefined metadata. To exemplify this, empty text areas, empty groups, dots, etc. We can express it as objects.

1-Point Cleaning

To delete unnecessary points from your dwg file, you must first be able to detect them, for this you should use the “PTYPE” command. You can determine the appearance of the point with the PTYPE command. Once you have determined the points in your drawing will stand out. You can now select and delete.

If there are no points in your drawing, you can select all points with the quick selection tool “QSELECT” and delete them in one move.

2-Invisible Block Cleaning

Your blocks may be invisible and unnecessarily bloat your drawing. In order to detect it, you must write the subvalue “on” after entering the “ATTDISP” command. After activating this command, you can delete the invisible blocks you do not need. To revert the feature, you can type the subvalue “Normal” after typing the command.

3-Invisible and Empty Text Cleaning

Sometimes you leave blank the “TEXT” boxes you use to create your locations or other descriptions. To find empty boxes and clear them one by one, you can enter the command “QTEXTMODE” and then enter the subvalue “1”. This command creates a frame for your empty text boxes and makes them visible. You can now delete it. To disable the feature, you can type the same command and enter the value “0”.

4-Cleaning Invisible 3D Surfaces

To reduce AutoCAD dwg size, some models in your drawing may have invisible surfaces. You can use the “SPLFRAME” command to reveal these faces. With this command, you can reveal surfaces and selectively delete them.

Explode Unnecessary Groups

Make sure the lower value of the “GROUPDISPLAYMODE” command is “2” to ensure that groups in your drawing are visible when you select them. If the alt value is correct, select all your drawings with ctrl+A and explode the unnecessary groups.

WipeOut Drawings

You may want to hide certain areas on Autocad dwg to optimize and reduce its size. Sometimes we may forget to select the “WIPEOUT” command, which offers us the perfect solution to hide it without deleting it, while moving our drawing. In this case, it will continue to remain in your file as unnecessary. You can use the “TFRAMES” or “WIPEOUTFRAME” commands to find the invisible layer.

Run the General Cleanup Tool

Run the cleaning “PURGE” command, which works successfully in Autocad 2010 and later, and select the options it offers and clean.

Delete Overlapping Lines

In your work on AutoCAD, you can use the “OVERKILL” command to ensure that the overlapping wall or furnishing lines, which we often see in ready-made drawings, are formed as a single line. If this command does not work, they may be at different heights on the Z axis. To convert the 3D drawing to 2D, first select the drawing and then run the “FLATTEN” command. After the process is completed, when you run the “OVERKILL” tool, you can see that this problem is eliminated with the appropriate tolerance value.

Clean Up Unnecessary Layers for Dwg Optimization

Delete unnecessary, unused layers in your drawing or merge them with other layers. Looking at the drawings of today’s users, gate001, gate002 etc. It is seen that there are unnecessary layers with the same attributes. This situation causes the program to become heavier.

Run the “LAYER” command and select all layers. The easy way to do this is to press ctrl+A after selecting a layer. After selecting all layers, press the delete button. Don’t be afraid, you have already made a backup at the beginning of the process and the program will not delete any layers in use, only empty ones will be deleted.

After clearing unnecessary layers, you can merge any layer you want with the target layer with the “LAYMRG” command. The first selected layer is deleted and added to the target layer.

Want to delete an undeletable layer? AutoCAD does not allow this for security purposes, but you can use the “LAYDEL” command to force delete. After running the command, it will delete the layer containing the object you touched. If you click wrong, type the “Undo” subvalue without leaving the command to undo. If you exit the command, you can ctrl+z. You cannot undo it otherwise, so use the command carefully! (If you save and exit the drawing, it cannot be undone!)

Please note that you can use the command except for the active layer and Layer 0. It is recommended to switch to layer 0 before use.

*Sorry for adding Turkish suffixes to English words. The reason for this is that users who search for the problem use these terms.

If you have many layers, you can set it to 0 using the “SHOWLAYERUSAGE” command. This way, the program will not have to constantly count the layers in use and your drawing will speed up.

Remove AutoCad Opening Logo!

Another way to speed up AutoCAD is to optimize startup time. You can also read our “AutoCAD Opening Speeding” topic to achieve a faster startup by removing the loading screen required to open the program. I definitely recommend you to complete the simple step and enjoy.

Calm Down Your Antivirus Program a Little

If you use an aggressive antivirus program, AutoCAD will constantly scan the constantly changing DWG, DWS, DWT, DXF, BAK, SV$ extensions while it is running. In this case, your processor will be tired and AutoCAD will wait for your virus program in every operation. For this reason, to get a faster response time, you can add these extensions to the extensions to be excluded from scanning in your antivirus program.

That’s all, you have successfully reduced and optimized the size of your Autocad dwg file. You can leave your suggestions in the comments or ask in the forum to get support.