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Layer standards vs Color Standards

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Message 1 of 10
dbr
Explorer
8827 Views, 9 Replies

Layer standards vs Color Standards

I recently switched companies. The new company that I came to uses only the first 12 colors of the ctb file. At my old company we used tons of the colors 1-255. Since I have been here I asked if I could create a new color chart that included more colors. I did not change any of the line weights that were already used but I just added a bunch. They originally agreed to it but I guess they never fully understood what I was doing since they had never seen anything like it. My question is how many people out there only use a few colors out of the 1-255 color chart for a ctb? How many use a lot? And how many people actually set the color with the layer and never are allowed to change the color because that is the standard? My take was as long as the layer is a company layer, what difference does it make it blue or red as long as it plots out at 0.5 mm? To me if you are using a ctb file you should know line weights not just colors.

9 REPLIES 9
Message 2 of 10
lothar
in reply to: dbr

In my (granted not so humble) opinion, using more than a dozen different colors make little sense.  I know there's a lot of effort going on in the graphic design world where a photographic range of available colors makes a difference in the presentation, but as long as we're talking strictly using colors within the CAD envirnment to differntiate between drawing objects and elements using fewer colors get you the same bang for the bang for the buck when sharing drawing files with other users.  Speaking as someone who is red/green challenged, I can assure you that it is far more important to be able to turn off certain drawing elements with a layer.  What you see as different shades of Red, Green or Brown, may likely all look the same color to me unless it is a vivid Red or a vivid Green. 

Ploting to a PDF file gets even more complicated. Colors such as Yellow or Cyan which stand out vividly when viewed on a black CAD background are next to impossible to see if the resulting PDF file is ever printed out to white paper, and will not be picked up by a copier or fax machine down the road.

 

Having said all of this I do make the following recommendation: I have plot tables set up so my output is all black lines except objects placed on a "Revisions"  layer, which is Red.  This way my revision clouds and any comments I need to bring to the attention of whoever is viewing one of my drawings stand out.  BTW I work in the construction field for a materials supplier and our drawings end up being submitted to the General Contractors, and Architects for approval.

Being able to turn off the layers with the plumbing makes alot more sense than assigning a different shade of blue for the plumbing features than the blue used for mechanical features.

This is only my opinion, not a critisism of your personal drafting preference, I hope I haven't offended anyone!

Message 3 of 10
3wood
in reply to: dbr

In a company environment, team work is very important. If you are not the only CAD operator, the best thing to do is to follow existing CAD standard, including the color scheme. Because if you leave the company later, or hand over your drawing to another colleague, they will find too many colors in your drawing and it is quite annoying to change them back to the color scheme they used to.

If you are a freelancer and only yourself have the access to drawing, then you can do whatever you like.

Message 4 of 10
Alfred.NESWADBA
in reply to: dbr

Hi,

 

>> To me if you are using a ctb file you should know line weights not just colors

I don't use CTB, I don't use STB, I draw all objects on their layers (and all object-properties like color, lineweight, linetype, transparency are set to byLayer).

 

And every layer has the settings:

  • Color ==> that's the color I want to plot objects on that layer
  • Linetype ==> that's the linetype I want to plot objects on that layer
  • Lineweight ==> that's the lineweight I want to plot objects on that layer
  • Transparency ==> that's the transparency I want to plot objects on that layer

 

The results of that:

  • I see during drawing-editing exactly what I will get on the paper (I'm working on white background)
  • And in case I need something different for specific plan-types I can override the layersettings per viewport
  • That also enables the option to have multiple viewports on one/on the same layout showing every layer in different properties, e.g. wall-hatch in blue in one viewport, in grey+transparent in the other viewport
  • The best of all: everyone can plot my drawings without having to manage any CTB or STB (which are most not shipped with the drawings)

 

Just my 2c

 

- alfred -

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfred NESWADBA
Ingenieur Studio HOLLAUS ... www.hollaus.at ... blog.hollaus.at ... CDay 2024
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(not an Autodesk consultant)
Message 5 of 10
Kent1Cooper
in reply to: dbr

I use even fewer -- only the first 6 colors -- for anything that's to be plotted.  Those are set in our .ctb file to plot in black with different lineweights, color 1 being "set" to 0 [which comes out as the thinnest line the printer/plotter can make], up to color 6 being as heavy a line as we would ever be likely to want for ordinary linework content.  All of them are easily visible against a black CAD background, and very easily distinguishable from each other -- who can tell by eye whether something is, for example, color 13 as opposed to color 23, if there aren't things of both colors very close to each other?  One advantage is that no matter how far in or out I'm zoomed, I can [once accustomed to this color scheme] see what the lineweights of things will be when plotted.  Six lineweights is enough to differentiate as much as we need to in lineweight.  If I rarely want something even heavier than what we do for color 6, I will usually use a Polyline with width.  I leave Layers 0 and Defpoints in their default color 7, so if I used Layer 0 to rough something out, I can see instantly, even if zoomed way out, if there are things I haven't assigned to a "real" Layer yet, by the obviousness of white stuff in the drawing.  I use clearly-other colors for various non-plotting Layers [such as for layout work, area-calculation outline Polylines, viewports, etc.], and anything on them is again easily distinguishable, at any zoom level, from the stuff that's going to show in a plotted drawing.  The argument can be made that I can't distinguish visibly things that are on various different Layers that have the same color, but most of the time I can tell by the nature of the drawn stuff, and when occasionally I can't, I just pick on something and its Layer is identified in the Properties box and/or Layer pull-down.

Kent Cooper, AIA
Message 6 of 10
scot-65
in reply to: dbr

I follow Kent's method as well.

 

Here is my take:

 

CTB - All assigned to black with a few grayscale added and a no plot color.

 

In most situations the human eye can only differentiate a few ranges of lineweights.

The printer will dictate the lightest lineweight and presentation will dictate the heaviest.

 

This being said, we employ 5 linetypes. Take the lightest and the heaviest and divide into

5 values. We almost follow the progression of the first group of colors, but with one

exception.

 

White is of course default. We start here by assigning it a neutral lineweight. It is not the

heaviest, and not the lightest or anything in between (neutral and light / neutral and heavy).

If you do not know what you are drawing, create using the white/default color.

Editing after the fact is easy.

 

A lineweight 2 steps below neutral for us, is Red (-2).

We use Yellow as 1 step below neutral (-1). This is our [regular] text color.

Green is one step above the neutral lineweight (+1).

Finally, Magenta (purple studs) is our heaviest lineweight (+2).

 

To round out the first group of colors, Blue cannot be seen very well on a black background.

We use this as "cheated" dimensions and text objects owned by more than one person (reactors).

The lineweight for Blue, to us, is the same as Yellow (-1).

Also worth noting is the original CAD in our office used Blue for the dimensions, but that

changed to Yellow when R12 was released.

 

Cyan to us is one half step above neutral (+0.5). Not as light as white or heavy as Green.

This color is not used much here.

 

Grayscale:

Think about employing grayscale lineweights. Start with a neutral lineweight and create

three grayscale lines - Neutral (35%), Heavy (45%), and Light (25%). This is colors 8, 9, and

10 respectively for us. Don't go overboard with the lineweights here. Too thin a line and

it will not print - too heavy and DRAWORDER will be your most used command.

 

No Plot Color:

Color 11 for us is Defpoints, as well as a 0% grayscale. The best example as to why this is,

is hatching large areas and the boundary is hard to define. Waiting... Analyzing...

Place line on hatch layer, color it 11, leave it there, and hatch away. The line never shows

when printing and it does not interfere with other layers.

 

The Lineweight Column:

Do not use the Lineweight column in the layer manager. Always show as "Default".

By setting a lineweight here, the entire layer is washed with one lineweight regardless of

the color of the objects (or the value in the CTB file). This is a pseudo-STB method of

using the pen table. Inserting a colorful block on a layer that has the lineweight assigned

to anything other than default will not print as one would expect.

 

The Title Border:

Separate and isolate the color scheme of your title border to that of drawing objects.

Sometimes one has to draw using a completely different scale and the current pen table

will have to be either lightened or darkened. Had the title border shared the same pens

as the drawing objects, then the border will reflect the new pen table lineweights (no

good here).

 

Pen Tables:

We employ three CTB files.

 - Plotting AT the advertised scale (22 x 34 sheet size).

 - Plotting at HALF the advertised scale (11 x 17 sheet size).

 - Plotting at less than half the advertised scale (8 1/2 x 11 marketing flyers).

 

A fourth pen table is available, but seldom used, which is a pen table for 1/8 scale

production where are "normal" production is 1/4 scale.

 

To answer your inquiry - Introducing more colors to the palette seems like a good,

organizational idea, but at what point will the next person know which of the five

lineweights are assigned to the more than 5 colors?

 

Develop your color schemes to the guidelines I have shown here.

Good Luck!

 


Scot-65
A gift of extraordinary Common Sense does not require an Acronym Suffix to be added to my given name.


Message 7 of 10
kasperwuyts
in reply to: scot-65

We use many different colors and many different layers. We use different layers for different object types, such as doors, steel sections, connection pieces, finishing pieces, dimensions, leaders, text, etc... Using a wide variety of layers -even if many plot with the same lineweight- makes it easier to differentiate between objects on complex technical drawings of larger structures. Especially when zoomed in, when you have 15 parallel lines it's good to know which to trim. It also makes it very easy to hide lots of items in viewports when you don't need them.


Best regards
Kasper Wuyts
_______________________________________________________________________________
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Message 8 of 10
pkolarik
in reply to: kasperwuyts

Our setup is much like kasper's....

 

We use about 20-25 different colors (and plot via ctb) or more and have around a good 20 layers per discipline utilizing alot of those colors (we pretty much do all disciplines in house, so we need alot of layers and colors for the flexibility it offers) in each.

 

We very well can have 4 layers out of 20 in a drawing all plotting with the same color and lineweight (we do very little color plotting), but each layer has somewhat specific items on it, allowing for different items to be turned off and/or shaded back in other disciplines.

 

Like one of the other posters, I am red/green challenged, so when we were setting up this layer color standard (I've been here a long time.. lol) we made sure there weren't too many colors too closely resembling each other. When you take that approach you can't realistically use a very large share of the 255 available colors.

 

While we may have that many colors and layers used, we only actually have about 6 or 7 lineweights (including 2 screened lineweights) that we use on a regular basis.

Message 9 of 10
nestly2
in reply to: dbr

I'm very much like Alfred. I don't use a ctb to make the drawing display or plot correctly.  Colors and lineweights are determined by the Layer.   The only plot stye I ever use is monochome.ctb

Message 10 of 10
doni49
in reply to: nestly2

We use a CTB file.  All colors EXCEPT the first 18 are set to use the object's color & lineweight.

 

Colors 1-7 step from thinest to thickest (white is one of the heaviest we'd ever use.  Then some of the other colors are set to handle screening and a few of those upper colors are set to be EXTREMELY THICK -- so thick that I've never used them.



Don Ireland
Engineering Design Technician




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