Alignment display color different than plot color

[JeffLowry]

I'm just curious if maybe I'm missing something.  When I edit an alignment style I can change the color of the alignment center line to what I'd like.  However, when I was plotting the drawing I was noticing that the alignments were all coming out as a light gray color (using a grayscale plot style) as opposed to the white/black I specified in the style.  The screen shows the correct color, but previews and plots are coming out wrong.  I was able to track it down to the Civil 3D layer "C-ROAD-STAN".  Whatever color that layer is is the color that the alignment centerline plots.

Is this normal behavior or is there something that I'm missing in settings somewhere?  I'd like it to plot as the same color as set in the styles.

[Jay_B]

What version & SP?

So it sounds like just the alignments are causing color issues & everything else plots as expected?

Can you share an example file which has this issue?

[JeffLowry]

It's AutoCAD Civil 3D 2015 with SP1.  I'm suspecting it's a corruption of the drawing file of some sort.  Not too sure how as this drawing was in its infancy when it first popped up.  The DWG is too large to attach, so I'll attach screenshots.  Sorry, I know it's not the same as a DWG.

The style of the alignment was set to white (black) for plotting, but as you can see in the plot preview it uses the color of the layer C-ROAD-STAN.

Here's how it looks in paperspace.

And here's how it looks on the PDF plot (as well as paper plots).

The glitch seems to show up only in certain drawings and has randomly corrected itself in the past.

[JeffLowry]

Here's a copy of the DWG.  I stripped everything else out of it to reduce the file size.

[jmayo-EE]

Does you pen file (ctb or stb) map magenta to white? The file you attached deos not have any pen file assigned and no pen file was attached.

[JeffLowry]

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@jmayo wrote:
Does you pen file (ctb or stb) map magenta to white? The file you attached deos not have any pen file assigned and no pen file was attached.

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No.  I generally use the included grayscale plot style, which was producing a faint gray line as opposed to black.  I switched it to 'none' to see what color it was in order to determine what layer's color it was using.  It's definitely linked to C-ROAD-STAN's color.  Whatever I set that layer to is the color that it plots the alignment as.

Just in case it's my install, is it showing it as black in paperspace and plotting it as magenta in your Civil 3D?

[Jay_B · Accepted solution]

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JeffLowry wrote:

Just in case it's my install, is it showing it as black in paperspace and plotting it as magenta in your Civil 3D?

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Sounds like it may be nothing to do with your install.

Wow, after beating my head on the keyboard a while on this one, I found This related post and it's exactly what you're describing. Same culprit layer name.

Also tested the masking workaround mentioned and it seems to make the alignment in your dwg plot preview normally too.

I wasn't able to duplicate the issue using one of our alignment styles.

Maybe some sort of style corruption.

[JeffLowry]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@JeffLowry wrote:

Just in case it's my install, is it showing it as black in paperspace and plotting it as magenta in your Civil 3D?

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Sounds like it may be nothing to do with your install.

Wow, after beating my head on the keyboard a while on this one, I found This related post and it's exactly what you're describing. Same culprit layer name.

Also tested the masking workaround mentioned and it seems to make the alignment in your dwg plot preview normally too.

I wasn't able to duplicate the issue using one of our alignment styles.

Maybe some sort of style corruption.

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Well, after fighting it yesterday and finally figuring out what layer I could use to control the plot color, I just opened the file attached to this post and changed the style color again just for kicks.  Worked just fine and plotted correctly regardless of the C-ROAD-STAN layer color.

Thanks for the link to the other post!  Good to know it's not just me.  🙂  Thanks for all of the input!  I'll have to keep the masking tip in mind in case it recurs.  Like I said, it randomly starts happening in drawings.

[jmayo-EE]

If you set all of the layers in the alignment style to layer zero the style color control works. The alignment layer is being created with the alignment name as per the dwg's drawing settings.