AutoCAD MEP

[#1]

I'm presently doing some building services drawings that use DWGs from an architect as the base drawing. Many of the lines on these drawings are ridiculously thick, not just when plotting but when displayed as well. Visually, they're more like a hatch than a line, but all their properties say they're normal lines.

I can't get them to display as (normal!) thin, single pixel-wide lines, not by changing their properties, matching their properties from other lines, etc. Short of manually redrawing each and every one of them, does anyone know what these are and how to fix them? Whatever the architect needed 100mm wide lines for, all they do for me is cover up the mechanical services.

[#2]

Check to make sure "Show/Hide Lineweight" is unchecked at the bottom of the command line.

[#3]

Are you in a CTB or STB file?  When you say "Normal" are you referring to the default Plot Style name "Normal" or are you casually using "Normal" in a sentence to indicate what you feel the layer settings are "Normal" or "Regular" nothing out of the "Normal."  Reason is that in an STB based drawing, the "Normal" Plot Style name causes linework on that layer to plot in color at that color's lineweight, in lieu of black with the layer's lineweight property. 

The other possibility here is that you may be using a visual style other than 2D Wireframe.  The other visual styles ignore layer linetype/weight settings (especially the Hidden VS's).  Set your visual style to 2D Wireframe aqnd see if that makes a difference.  The lineweight on/off toggle only affects what you see on screen, and does not directly affect the plot.

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[#4]

@jcleghorn

Display lineweight is unchecked.

@Joshua.Benoist

The file is one of ours, using our ctb file. First thing we do when receiving an architecural layout is copy the contents of model space into one of our files. The original files typically have >300 errors found in the drawing when opening.

We have our own plot style file. "Normal" in this case refers to every single line I've ever encountered that wasn't one of the overly thick lines on an architecural drawing. It's a somewhat vague definition, but this trait is one that seems unique to these lines. Essentially "Normal" refers to any line or polyline, the display and plot traits of which are actually dependent on its properties.

Changing viewstyle away from 2D Wireframe doesn't make them normal thickness again. Instead the lines are shown as unfilled outlines. Significantly less annoying, but still far from ideal when printing or viewing. This is what they look like, here being used to show the locations of smoke walls:

Any ideas?

[#5]

Those are polylines and they have a polyline width.  They are different from regular lines which use the layer's linewidth. 

To edit an existing polyline width, type in PEDIT at the command line.  Then type W for Width.  Enter a value.

Another way to edit an existing polyline width, select the polyline and open your property palette.  Find "Global Width" and change the value.  Note:  The start and ends of a polyline can have different widths hence the two settings immediately above "Global Width" for Start and End Width.  And that is why polylines do not use the layer's linewidth.

To set the polyline global width before ever drawing a new polyline, type in PLINEWID at the command line.  The command to draw a new polyline is PLINE. (Threw that in there to round out the conversation.)

HTH,

Joshua

[#6]

I typically select all polylines using the "select similar" command, then just change the "global width" in the properties.