Named Plot Style vs. Color Dependent

[Anonymous]

I am looking for opinions on using Named Plot Styles vs. Color Dependent
Plot Styles.

This question has reared its ugly head during some recent CAD standards
restructuring meetings in our office.

From a CAD managers point of view, is one better or worse? Why?

Any comments are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Timothy,

We have been using color styles for the last year, even in A2K. Recently I
have started to play with named styles. So far I like it. It takes more
time to set up if you're not using a template, but allows more flexibility
in the end. For example, you now have to set color, as well as, lineweight
and plot style. But, you can now create a custom plot style for any color
of lineweight. We use shading/screening a lot for background info. I don't
have to worry about using a specific color to achieve this.

I think that named plot styles is where we will be heading in the near
future.

Good luck,
Audie Osgood
CADD Guy
Sweetland Engineering
State College, PA
www.sweetland-eng.com

Timothy Rider wrote in message
news:23D94A9934D78E473F28A47982C29DC1@in.WebX.SaUCah8kaAW...
> I am looking for opinions on using Named Plot Styles vs. Color Dependent
> Plot Styles.
>
> This question has reared its ugly head during some recent CAD standards
> restructuring meetings in our office.
>
> From a CAD managers point of view, is one better or worse? Why?
>
> Any comments are greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks
>

[Anonymous]

Timothy,

My feelings are that named plot styles are pretty cool, but you may just not
need them.

The advantage is that it disassociates plot style from color. So, for
example, if you have backgrounds that you want screened, you don't have to
change all the entities to a gray color on your screen, just for them to
plot gray. You can just leave them alone and assign a shaded plot style to
the whole batch of layers. If you have a lot of different ways to plot the
same drawing, this could be really handy, not to mention save lots of time
when you get updated backgrounds. Take a look at the sample drawing "1st
floor"--assigning each layout separate named plot styles works really well
here.

The disadvantages: Most of us are trained to identify objects by their
color already. I would personally have a hard time drawing my own work
(HVAC and electrical) in bright colors on top of an architectural plan that
was still the architect's bright colors. It would bother my eyes--I like my
backgrounds to look gray.
Another problem is in enforcement. Unless you check your plot style
settings before each plot, they could come out all wrong and you wouldn't
notice until you looked at the page. You'd need some excellent CAD
standards to make sure things don't slip through the cracks.
Last, it's just one more set of things to keep track of--a big minus if you
ask me.

So like I said, I can see how named plot styles could be really useful, but
you've got to decide if they fit the kind of work you do. In our case, they
aren't worth the extra bother. Between managing a hybrid R14/A2K office and
the CAD standards we've established, sticking with our old color-based
scheme was just the simplest choice.

I'm sure you can find other threads on this subject if you go to the
discussion groups search engine.

My 2c,
-Eva

Timothy Rider wrote:

> I am looking for opinions on using Named Plot Styles vs. Color Dependent
> Plot Styles.
>
> This question has reared its ugly head during some recent CAD standards
> restructuring meetings in our office.
>
> From a CAD managers point of view, is one better or worse? Why?
>
> Any comments are greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks

[Anonymous]

Timothy,

I haven't yet started to implement Named Plot Styles yet, due to a problem with
dealing with Architectural Desktop's subobjects inside AEC objects. This has
been fixed in R3, however, so I will probably start to incorporate them into our
way of doing things.

Named Plot Styles are just another abstraction of what's drawn to how it plots.
With color-based styles, which we've been using since day one, you assign a
color to a pen weight and adjust your drawing to match. Hence, you have a lot of
the old restrictive "All Colors Must Be Bylayer At All Times" rules in your
standards.

However, with Named Plot Styles you essentially throw that limitation out and
start over, assigning a Plotting Style to objects or layers - just as you would
a color or linetype. It's just another property of the object, but because it's
not tied at all to color, it gives you another dimension fo freedom in how you
are presenting your drawing.

It helps to understand Named Plot Styles if you think of the usual color-based
plot style table as what it really is - a table of 255 separate color plot
styles, one for each color. Once you divorce yourself from assigning colors to
mean plot weights, you'll find a lot of freedom in how to get reliable,
consistent output easily - much more easily than having things tied inexorably
to color.

For example, to turn an exterior elevation from normal monochrome black and
white to a full color plot using color-based plotting could be a nightmare. With
plot styles it's almost effortless, because color isn't a limiting factor.

I think both have their plusses and minuses, but the only real thing on
Color-based plotting's corner is the familiarity with it that everyone has. It
will take a while for named-based plotting to catch on, but I expect it will
take over as the default method of plotting.

It would also make the process of plotting someone else's drawings a simple
thing, instead of having to deal with .PC3 or PCP files and all that nonsense.

Matt
stachoni@bellatlantic.net

On Wed, 31 Jan 2001 09:10:15 -0800, "Timothy Rider"
wrote:

>I am looking for opinions on using Named Plot Styles vs. Color Dependent
>Plot Styles.
>
>This question has reared its ugly head during some recent CAD standards
>restructuring meetings in our office.
>
>From a CAD managers point of view, is one better or worse? Why?
>
>Any comments are greatly appreciated.
>
>Thanks