FBX export ultra slow on Windows !!

[jackiehumzad]

I am exporting a 134 million faces mesh with vertex colors as FBX on Windows and after 3 hours the mesh export is still not complete. I exported smaller meshes with the Windows version before and this was also extremely slow (not that slow though, but mesh was smaller). Comparatively I have been using PhotoScan on a Mac and even though i didn't export such large meshes (can't because not enough RAM), comparatively to the Windows version it seemed to me the export on Mac was way faster. PhotoScan Standard 1.4.1, 64GB of RAM on Windows, 32GB ram on Mac.

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello jackiehumzad,

Can you consider using different export formats, like Alembic, for such large mesh export? I also suggest to try version 1.4.5 or 1.5.0.

[bestable]

Old post revival, but this is still happening with latest version.

FBX 1Mil export takes too long.

[Exorbitart]

 just my experiences.:
I export 130mio fbx with current version in ca 1h but this is nearly the limit. obj support better export within 300-400mio polygons but in this ranges it need always 1-2h+ to export (I have 128gb ram).

A automatic tiled mesh via metashape would a big step for users in future! 

To generate a 300mio mesh is not that big challange throught depthmaps.. but the export and further handling in one file is.

[Exorbitart]

I tried alembic export it works mutch faster. just few minutes to export a 300mio model

[bestable]

Alembic is faster, right, but Substance Designer does not accept abc files. What do You use to convert abc to Substance Designer compatible mesh ?

[ilia]

I keep having the same difficulties.
.fbx exports always take infinite amount of time even when we speak about models with 20mln triangles. It gets stuck at 50%.
I'm not sure what causes this.

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello ilia,

Can you please provide the screenshot of Export Model dialog with the parameters used and also specify the number of vertices/faces in the model and the size of the texture atlas, if you are also saving the texture.

Also please specify, if the project is stored on local/network/external drive and whether the model is exported to local (SSD or HDD), network or external drive?

[ilia]

Hi Alexey,
Actually when I recently was working on .fbx export I have it done in a reasonable time.
But yesterday my 10mln export went quite well in .fbx format. It got stuck at 50% progress as usual, but when I've got back to machine I saw it was done and it didn't take more than 20 mins I think.
Before I had issues export in .fbx models with 100mln triangles. I have a couple models under hand and I will try to play with it a bit and .fbx exports.

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello ilia,

Let me know, if you observe considerable difference for the same model export to FBX with and without vertex colors information (for example, for models with more than 40-50 faces).

[ilia]

Dear Alexey,

I again experienced the situation when exporting .fbx (no embedded textures) takes like 15 mins against approx. 1 min. .glb export. Should I try to upload the model somewhere?

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello ilia,

Do you use binary or text export option? Also please specify the number of polygons in the model and, if the texture export is enabled, number and size of texture atlas pages, we will try to reproduce it on similar models first.

Additionally, please specify, if the export is done on local, external or network drive and what are the sizes of exported FBX and .glb files.

[ilia]

Binary option was used,
It took 15 mins for the model with 24mln to get exported in .fbx. I would say it is like 10 times slower (if not more) than using .glb.
Settings are attached to this message.

One of the problems here is that progress bar quickly reaches 50% and gets stuck there. And as a user I don't have any visual feedback from the progress at all. For large models it is quite hard to understand if anything is happening.

Also as I see it fully loads a single CPU core after it reaches its 50%.

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello ilia,

Thank you for additional information. We will try to improve FBX export speed in the 2.1.1 update.

[ilia]

Thank you Alexey!