Symbols vs. Blocks

The use of symbols and blocks in TurboCAD can improve the performance and reduce the file size of a resulting TurboCAD file. For a test I took the following image and created a number of copies of the same object. In the first test, I created 50 copies using the rubber stamp feature. In the seconde example, I created a block from the object and created 50 instances of the object and in the last example I created a symbol from the object and created 50 instances of the symbol.

No of Objects	File Size	Comment
1	19k	Original Entity
20	25k	20 Copies of original entity using rubber stamp
20	22k	20 copies using a block
20	25k	20 Copies using sybmols
50	30k	50 Copies of orignal entities
50	22k	50 Copies using blocks
50	30k	50 copies using symbols

When you create a rubber stamp of an object, TurboCAD creates copies of all the entities in that object and it allocates memory for all those entities. The memory requirements is related to the complexity of the objects.

When you create a block, and add multiple entities of the block to your drawing, TurboCAD allocates the memory for the object and then stores references to the object for all the instances you create. Blocks are only available to the current drawing (unless you import them)

Symbols are available to multiple drawings but they are essentially independant drawings on their own and each time you use them, TurboCAD allocates memory for it.

In 3D the results are even more noticable.

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