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Very large BRD file size

Michael Huawei

Good morning!

I'm working with Allegro PCB Editor 17.2-2016 (S070).

While routing my board the file size suddenly rises up to 45 MB. A few days ago the file size was only 8 MB.

Just for testing I deleted my entire schematics except one resistor and updated the netlist. In my board file I deleted all symbols, wires, shapes, boundaries etc.

Curiously the file size is still 16 MB.

Is there any hint how to reduce the file size?

  • mcatramb91

    Hello,

    The way I understand it, a change was made to improve performance on designs with larger extents compared to a much smaller Design Outline.

    To put it simply, the larger extents is divided into equal sections which cases the Design Outline to fall into one or a couple of sections, this would greatly effect performance.  Reducing the extents could help but in many cases other non-design objects (such as manufacturing and assembly drawings) will cause the extent to grow.

    In the newer version, the Design Outline size is now considered, which results in generation of smaller sections to improve performance - this results in a larger database file size.

    If possible, reduce the design extents to improve performance and file size.  Here is a couple of support docs that could help reduce extents.

    How to reduce the drawing size to fit the drawing extents

    How to reduce the drawing size in Allegro to minimum extents


    A couple of notes:

    - Make sure to save the design before changing the drawing extents

    - If you manually modify the Extents inside of Design Parameters (Setup > Design Parameters > Design tab) be careful to not make it too small where data is outside the extents.

    = Turn on all layers (Global Visibility ON) and reserve edge space around the visible objects

    = You could use the mouse position coordinates to determine the sizes

    = Remember to add Left X and Lower Y values to the Width/Height mouse position numbers, see example below

    Width: 21000 = X mouse position coordinate on canvas 15900 + Left X: 5100

    Height: 17000 = Y mouse position coordinate on canvas 14100 + Lower Y: 2900

    Hope this helps,
    Mike Catrambone

  • Wild
    in reply to mcatramb91

    Really nice document, however both your links point to the same page.  If there is a second link you meant to post, I would be grateful for the information.
    Thanks for the post!

  • Wild
    in reply to mcatramb91

    TY, I wish I had the time to learn Skill code, just not enough hours in the day.  I truly appreciate the info
    Kind Regards,

    Wild

  • Michael Huawei
    in reply to mcatramb91

    So do I understand you correctly:

    It's not a bug, it's a feature?

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