AutoCAD 2013/2014 DWG Format

[#1]

i am editing a drawing i have inherited from the previous drafter who is no longer working here. this drawing references 2 other drawings. one is the title block, the other is the engineering drawing. both of these drawings have white objects in them, namely, some text and some solid hatching.

instead ot those white objects appearing as white in this drawing, they are appearing as a grey colour. i have double and triple checked that these objects are coloured by layer and the layer is white in both of the xrefs. they appear white in the xrefs but not in the final drawing.

since we are using colour dependent line weights in our printing, i would like to get this colour problem sorted. ideas?

[#2]

You might misunderstand some relatively new features.  See help on XDWGFADECTL.  If setting it to 0 changes the color, then that is what is affecting the display.

[#3]

thanks for your reply. ive changed that xref fading value from 50 to 0 but that didnt change the appearance of the colours. 

looking closer now i notice that all colours in the xrefs are affected. could there be a setting in this drawing causing the xrefs to fade/darken?

[#4]

Check also the transparency of xref-layers. See:

http://www.cadforum.cz/cadforum_en/print-xref-entities-faded-tip7570

Vladimir Michl, www.cadstudio.cz

[#5]

@n0tepad

"i notice that all colours in the xrefs are affected."

That is what XDWGFADECTL does.  It affects all colors.

The way things appear on-screen do not necessarily affect the plot.  If your plotstyles are color based and the color numbers aren't changed, they will plot the same way.  If you want more help, attach a zip file with a small sample pair of dwg and xref that demonstrate the problem.

If you are new to AutoCAD, I strongly suggest getting classroom training rather than via newsgroups.

[#6]

The layer color in xref and the master drawing can be different.

Check the layer color in your master drawings.

Or check the VISRETAIN setting.

[#7 · Accepted solution]

thanks 3wood. i checked visretain was set to 1. i searched for more information on visretain and found a solution at

http://www.caddmanager.com/CMB/2005/01/dont-ya-just-love-visretain/

which essentially suggests to set visretain to 0, detach all xrefs, purge my drawing, then reattach my xrefs (losing all my layoff settings etc). it is important to set visretain back to 1 in order to keep layoff settings and (deliberate, wanted) layer colour changes.

note that a comment left at the abovementioned page suggests that you can simply reload your xrefs is not helpful. all that does is loses your layoff settings and doesnt resolve the colour display issue.

[#8]

I really do love visretain.  Sorry I didn't think about that earlier.  You don't have to detach the drawing and reload it.  Just turn visretain off and then then reload and then turn visretain back on. Before you do, however, consider that there may have been a very good reason for the previous drafter to use the same base plan and to assign different colors to it in different trade drawings.  This would be if you use color to control lineweight. Always plot preview before adjusting.  Note also that visretain preserves the on/off and freeze/thaw status of the layers, not just its color.  Arbitrarily detaching and reattaching when following up a drafter's work can lose these carefully chosen layer settings.