Plot Styles

[ESchomberg]

Dear sirs, all of a sudden I am forced to get an education on plotting. Hope this rabbit hole is not too painful. Please bear with me and teach me.

I am new to the idea of colors, layers, and plot styles controlling the appearance of your drawing. I will try to carefully word all of this in the hope of getting a full understanding.

I have a client that is extremely picky about every aspect of his drawings, and is able to pick things out that I would not have even noticed. He uses colors to control thickness and darkness of certain objects. I always thought this was controlled in lineweights through layers, and the color did not matter.

He gave me a list of pen styles:

SLOT NUMBER               COLOR LAYER              LINE WIDTH

# 1                                  RED                            .008

#11                                PINK                            .010

#7                                  White                          .012

#6                                  MAG.                          .014

#3                                  GREEN                         .016

#5                                  BLUE                           .018

#9                                  GRAY                          .020

#4                                  Cyan                           .022

#2                                  Yellow                         .024

I attempted to create a ctb file using this criteria but did not seem to get any difference in appearance in my drawing. For one thing there are no mm's that match .008, .012, etc. so I used inches and could find close matches but not exact. So my first question is can anyone show me how to set this up correctly?

2) Also I do not know how to plot without my layer colors plotting out, so I have always chosen grayscale which prints out in black and white. The problem is that if I use a ctb file I can no longer use grayscale so: How do I plot my drawing in black and white without the colors of my layers showing up??

3) If, while using this guys ctb file does that mean that every annotation, object or linetype I draw will have to use the same layer and color that he uses in his drawings to match his appearance??

4) Am I correct in saying that ctb is an alternative way to control line weight and annotation darkness other than using lineweights in layer control?? This is a bit confusing to me. I thought once you chose a text style, text height, and lineweight(in layers) all was done.....

In dire straights(please help)

[Pointdump]

Erik,

This attached drawing will help you with inch/mm comparisons. Plot it out and stick it on the wall.

Dave

[Joe-Bouza]

There are two ways to plot in autocad with and stb file or a ctb file and I wish not to open the can of worms : "which is better"

ctb uses the screen color and maps to a pen weight.

stb ignores the screen color and assigns pen weight in the layer settings.

note: if you use one type in your dwt file you will have to convert with CONVERPSTYLES 

If the client uses ctb then you should ask for there layering standards (i.e. their dwt file), you should get the ctb file from the client and not recreate the wheel. put it in the search path of your plotter pen styles.

Use the clients layers and screen colors and you should not have any issues. remember that conversation about CAD standards? coming full circle isnt it.

[rl_jackson]

I use a little of both worlds when it comes to ctb &stb. All pens in the ctb are set to black excep the grays which print grey. And let the layers (or style) control thickness.

[sboon]

Some background may be useful.  The early plotters had ink filled pens.  The print head would select one pen at a time and draw all of the lines for that, then switch to another pen and continue.  You could choose to have different ink colors in each pen, but it was more common to have all black pens with different line thicknesses in each one.  Pens were typically numbered in the ACad printing system, as were the colors on screen.  The video systems at the time were also limited to perhaps 16 colors.  Almost immediately people started matching screen colors to pen numbers.

Pen 1 - Red would be the thinnest black line.

Pen 2 - Yellow would be the next thickness.

etc....

This made it fairly simple to look at a drawing on screen and have a pretty good idea of what the plotted page would look like.

When inkjet plotters and better video cards became available Autodesk expanded the color wheel to include 254 so called "pens"  At that time you would use a ctb file to match the screen color of a line to what you wanted the plotted line to look like.  Most users just carried on with the system they were used to - I know of companies even now that never use anything beyond the first 11 colors.

More recently Autodesk decided to separate color from plotting with the introduction of stb files.  Now you can assign a style to a layer or an object, and define that style to be whatever combination of color, lineweight, screening etc. that you want.  But again, users are used to working a certain way and most of us still associate red on screen to a thin line, yellow to a thicker line, and so on.

Back to the original problem - when you start a new drawing from a template one of the things to consider is whether you plan to plot using stb or ctb.  Converting an existing drawing from one plotting system to the other is painful, and the software won't allow you to pick on the fly.  If the drawing is style based then the plot command will only let you pick stb files and if it's color based then you can only pick a ctb file.  I am assuming from your post that your drawing template is style based.  Try running the CONVERTPSTYLES command on it and see if that helps.

Steve
Please use the Accept as Solution or Kudo buttons when appropriate

[ESchomberg]

You guys are really amazing and awesome at trying to help people... Thank you so much, but I am so unfamiliar with plotting that this is about to freak me out... I will have to research this... The best thing I know to do at this point is to get his cbt file.

[ESchomberg]

Omg it seems like there is no end to CAD settings and styles..,its really overwhelming..... Is there any end to settings and styles???? I can draw pretty good but every time I turn around there are more files....more settings....more styles.....does it ever get to a point where you can just draw and print???

[sboon]

There isn't an ending to it, but the amount of time and effort you spend on styles and settings will decrease exponentially once you've worked through the basic stuff.

Steve
Please use the Accept as Solution or Kudo buttons when appropriate

[Pointdump]

Erik,

Here's a short-n-sweet vid on changing plot styles :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ghWx4vVdSQ

Dave

[Pointdump]

Erik,

And here's the long story. Start about 10:15 to skip the light-hearted banter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o2740-j-JA

Just to throw my 2 cents out there, I don't use either CTB's or STB's. Both are INSANE and needlessly complex. "Because that's how we always done it back in the 1900's" is no reason to use either.

Here's where to put Sea Level's CTB file:

Dave

[Joe-Bouza]

Just to throw my 2 cents out there, I don't use either CTB's or STB's. Both areINSANE and needlessly complex. "Because that's how we always done it back in the 1900's" is no reason to use either.

Dave, Thats interesting. How do you do it?

[Pointdump]

 Joe,

CTB's and STB's are a translation of the Layer Properties Manager. Why needlessly translate when everything necessary to plotting can be set in the Layer Properties Manager?

Everyone talks about "standards" (The way we always done it back in the 1900's). Here's what I see:

If it's Tuesday, then Red Lines on Layout 1 are color blue with a .01 width Dashed Linetype. On Wednesday, Red Lines on Layout 2 are now a color Magenta with a .007 width Continuous Linetype. On Layout 3 however, those Red Lines will become green lines with a .005 width special line.

Insane. Nobody uses Pen Plotters anymore. I like WYSIWYG.

Dave

[AllenJessup]

Dave,

I agree. I do it all with layer and object management. But you have to at least assign an OOTB CTB or STB. Right?

Allen

[Jay_B]

---

@Pointdump wrote:

Insane. Nobody uses Pen Plotters anymore. I like WYSIWYG.

---

Hi Dave,

That's most likely true, however, I'll go out on a limb and venture to guess there are very few folks around here who use "None" as their Plot Style Table (pen assignments) as their standard for plotting from AutoCad around here.

The OP has indicated his client is picky & uses a ctb to plot, so how is suggesting that they are unnecessary helping him in the learning process?

[AllenJessup]

As @Joe-Bouza said. The best way is to ask for your clients DWT and CTB. That way you'll match all his standards. I would think setting your Plotter to Monochrome would get you black and white prints.

[Pointdump]

Allen,

"But you have to at least assign an OOTB CTB or STB. Right?"

I never have, but to be honest, I never look at the "Plot Style Table (Pen Assignments)" drop-down or use anything but the defaults under "Plot Options". I rarely plot, and when I do, it's just for my own use. Construction staking point sheets and as-builts. No standards to follow.

Jay,

"...how is suggesting that they are unnecessary helping him in the learning process?"

It was just my 2 cents. Yes, Erik will have to learn about those maddening, complicated plot styles. It's just a shame that he needs to. In case you didn't notice, I offered him links to 2 videos, one of which is a one-hour-long webinar that I watched this morning to learn about them myself. It's up to Erik to decide what is useful and what is not.

Dave

[ESchomberg]

Hey guys I appreciate the input. I am working full time now so harder to reply. I received my clients cbt file yesterday and seems to have resolved that issue. Thank you