Pathfinder add taking an extremely long time to compute

[sam_s...@adobeforums.com]

Hello all,

I hope someone may have a solution for me, i am working on some large format artwork in Illustrator 10, the problem I have is working with some very complex artwork created using sillouette from bitmap images, this artwork I had to then expand to fills and strokes so that I could cut through the artwork in the right places, now what i need to do is turn all these objects into one, I select everything I want to combine go to pathfinder hit "add" and then wait from 5:30pm last night till 9:30am this morning for the "applying Filter/effect" progress bar to finish, I then hit expand to get rid of all of the stray points in the artwork and it all dissapears. The thing is my pc's a dual 2.4ghz xeon with 1GB ram and its taking this long to compute, i was told that filters in illustrator were multithreaded but they only seem to use 50% processing resources. Does anyone know of any way to speed up this add command, im guessing its just simple boolean algebra so it cant be that cpu intensive or can it? The problem is it expanded the artwork fine to loads of little objects but adding these together seems like mission impossible for the software.

Hope someone can help a poor lost designer with a deadline looming!

Regards,

Sam Sharpe

[Keiz...@adobeforums.com]

just simple boolean algebra

Not exactly so. From what U said I can tel U're trying to create an extremely complex object. It still shouldn't take a fortnight to calculate though.

I then hit expand to get rid of all of the stray points in the artwork
and it all dissapears

My guess is U have two copies of some objects overlaping eachother.But let us wait and see what will the experts say. C'mon Adobe...

[Ian_A....@adobeforums.com]

Keiz:

> C'mon Adobe... <<

You may be unaware that this is a User-to User forum where sometimes Adobe staff drop by but you're better off phoning or writing or leaving an e-mail at the Adobe web site to talk to the company: <http://www.adobe.com/misc/comments.html>

Note: even if an Adobe employee might post here, they would be doing so as a user, just like you or I. They are often users of Adobe software outside of their work-time. It's certainly not a job requirement for Adobe people to spend any time on this forum. We are very lucky that some employees (like Teri and Mordy) take their own time and money to share their expertise and help all of us.

[Teri Pettit]

Sam,

If you have very complex artwork with many selected paths that you want to combine, you should alt-click on the Add to Shape button, so that it doesn't try to create a live Compound Shape.

There is a lot of extra processing involved in creating a live Compound Shape that isn't needed when you are going to make a permanent combined shape where the component paths are discarded. (The tool-tip hint that says "Alt-Click to Expand" is slightly inaccurate, since it doesn't create a live Compound Shape and then auto-expand it, it just never creates one at all. But "Alt-Click to Combine non-live" is a bit of a mouthful.)

[Keiz...@adobeforums.com]

You may be unaware that this is a User-to User forum where sometimes Adobe

staff drop by...

I am aware. And Im THANKFUL to those like You, Teri and :)Mordy, and probably others that share their expirience and knowledge just as User to User. "C'mon Adobe" was maybe a bit dumb expression of the same that appreciation. SORRY :)

But the guy was talking about specific postscript mathemathics ( just simple boolean algebra :) ) which if not You then who else would know.

Jordan Ignatov - Keiz Lone Wolf