PLOTTING FROM CIVIL3D VS PLOTTING FROM PDF

[ESchomberg]

Dear friends, this spawns from my last post "has anyone used transparency before".

I do not know if using transparency has caused this or not but; now I seem to have problems controlling my hatch dark/lightness.

I am running in to differences between hatch darkness depending on whether I plot straight from civil3d, or plot from a PDF file.

It seems as if my hatch pattern is printing out darker from civil3d than it plots from a PDF file.

I will post my drawing, perhaps someone could explain to me what is happening?

Should it not plot the same from civil3d as it does from a pdf file???

[Joe-Bouza]

Your ctb/ stb file would be helpful to look at.

Using our pen file it looks fine either way. color 252 is a natural halftone. You have mentioned transparency but your hatches and layer are set to 0 = no transparency?

the natural halftone setting on our system is this:

is yours similar?

[ESchomberg]

Yes sir, I turned transparency off because it keeps creating problems. It continued to create problems in that drawing even when I turned it off. I don't know anything about different colors creating different tones.

Basically all I did is select the big bold text that says "BLOCK" right click properties enter a number in transparency. You can see it lighten up on the screen.

Sounds good until you plot out your PDF file and all of your hatching is coming out way too dark. That makes absolutely no sense to me. I changed the transparency on one single text, and it affects my hatching. Why would it do that? I did not tell it to use transparency in my hatching so why would it change anything in my hatching at all??? It is almost like whomever wrote this program did not think it out very well. Or purposely made it complicated, confusing and non user-friendly.

Not only that but in my CTB FILE and layers, I have about 5 different shades of darkness to control my hatching(which works great) until I try to use transparency on a completely different object. Even worse....when I select one of my lighter hatches to try to compensate for the errors in this program, it then WILL NOT print out any hatch at all!! Totally blank!

I talked to 2 of my bosses that use this program, one uses transparency the other does not. The one that does not.... experimented with the drawing of the one that does use transparency.... He found the same issues in his drawing(which he never knew existed) because he always prints straight from civil3d. So he terminated transparency and fixed the problem.

My best suggestion is for civil3d to uncomplicate, and/or fix these issues or remove them completely.

This program is hard enough to use without causing further problems. I turned transparency off in my new drawing and it hatches beautifully, just like it is supposed to.

[ESchomberg]

Hey Joe, I totally want to apologize for my last comment. I was frustrated that I can't figure this out. This really is a complex program that needs constant learning, help, and understanding.

There are so many options, variations, and settings that a person really must have diligence, care, and patience to continually learn this program.

I did not show any patience even though you were offering to help me out. My apology for becoming impatient I am now realizing that patience is the most important factor of learning this program.

[Joe-Bouza]

No worries. post your ctb file. I give a look on Monday

[ESchomberg]

Yes sir.... If not Mon. Soon thereafter.... It dawned on me tonight that there are scale factors involved in combination with CTB files and layers that work together in combinations that can affect the way the end product comes out. It is a lifetime learning process that takes a lot of patience and humility.

[Joe-Bouza]

you are correct about scale and all. (it is our livelihood so I guess it makes sense that is a lifetime of learning.)

If you are using ctb plotting then the plotted line weights and shading are dependent on the screen color. The screen color is mapped to the plotter by way of the ctb file. if you look at my earlier post you see the various setting for each screen color. the screen color and plotted weights assume you are plotting at some scale... so if you use screen color 1 (red) to plot a bold line based on the idea of a 20 or 30 scale drawing - that screen color may not work for 60 or 100 scale; you get black smudges. This is where your cad standards come into play.... plans and screen colors have to adapt to the scale of the ultimate plotted drawing; hence layer states and what not.

there is a scale line weight check box on the plot dialog. I use this when plotting full size to have size to compensate for the pen weights at full size, I also have a second ctb for smaller plots that redefine the pen weights by half for the congested larger scale plans

[ESchomberg]

Looking at your set up(even though I have been plotting surveys successfully for a year) shows me that: A) mine is set up differently. B) I probably do not have a good grasp on how to plot correctly but have been getting away with it. I am not familiar with cad standards so I may have the whole thing set up incorrectly. I actually do not understand what all of the settings mean in the CTB plot file.

For example at the top-right I have all of my chosen colors set to black, otherwise my drawing prints in colors so I assumed that this is how you print black even though I am using colors to control light/darkness. I see that you have pen numbers and virtual pen numbers assigned,I do not because I do not understand what that means or how it works.

Basically, what I have done is randomly chosen colors for every line type, text font, and hatch pattern that I may want to lighten/darken.....I control most, if not all of my line weights just using layer colors and in that particular layer I assign it a line weight in the layer itself; such as my 3 different fence types I assigned them all the color of 20(I think) in layers. I then assigned them a line weight of .13mm. My boundary line is assigned as blue in my layers with a width of 8mm(I think). If these lines plot too thick or too light based on the particular drawing or scale I am using, I simply go to the layer and change the line weight. Very simple and uncomplicated.

However, I added some complication when I decided to start using a CTB file to control the light/darkness of certain text fonts and hatch patterns. Actually it never seemed all that complicated until recently. For example I have a few text fonts that I have lightened up using the CTB file which works fine other than it seems that the light/darkness of these text fonts seem to vary depending on the scale I am drawing in. Also I have about 6 different hatch settings that I control the light/darkness in the CTB file which normally works fine.

Then I further complicated things by using transparency on one stubborn text font that did not seem to respond to the CTB file. I can not remember the name of the font but it is for my" BLOCK".....as in lot 5 BLOCK 12. I will try to find a drawing to send that has this font in it. So the transparency does Lighten up that text font but also seems to affect my hatch patterns which I never assigned any transparency to.

I hope I am wording this in an understandable way because it really seems that this can become very complex. And complexity is what I am trying to get away from. I either want to learn the correct way to use all of these factors, or either start eliminating some of them to make my life easier. For example, I do not necessarily HAVE to use transparency but it would be nice to be able to have it in my arsenal. Also I could do away with my CTB file and just let everything print "as is" but that would be taking away some flexibility in the program. Or I could have one hatch pattern with only one color and change the line weight in the CTB file every time I plot if it does not look right. This is enough to make my head spin around.

[rl_jackson · Accepted solution]

@ESchomberg

How @Joe-Bouza shows things being set up is just one of many methods. I don't set any pen widths in my CTB file, selecting instead to set all weights to by object. This allows me to set the weight in the layer settings without ever thinking about a color printing with a certain weight. While at the same time allowing my the option of making changes to the object in the properties to change it's weight.

[Joe-Bouza]

very cool @rl_jackson, I always thought that was for stb method.

[rl_jackson]

It's like the best of both worlds without all the headaches of stb set up. 😁

[ESchomberg]

Thanks YODA, I have mine set up like yours but did not know what I was doing. But it worked so thanks for insight. Two questions

1) under line end style what is the difference between butt, and square?

2) under line join style you have yours chosen as round. Can you tell me why you have this selected instead of"use object join style?

[rl_jackson]

1) it really depends on what you want to achieve as your end look. I try to limit my polyline with witdt usage because I create the width by object.

2). It looks like old school pens. I'm old school 20+. When a line ends it's round. Board to PC.

[Joe-Bouza]

@rl_jackson Rick, I'm liking the idea, but from a cad standard point of view, is there a way to prevent a user from changing the object weight in the layer dialog?  I'm wondering if the door to inconsistency can be left open or not? .... I guess in the screen color method there is nothing stopping a user from making a pline with width.

I'm trying to come to grips with the benefit of use object weight vs pen weight? 

[ESchomberg]

I wish I knew more about this. I have to go by the KISS principle...."keep it simple stupid" or my head will explode... I don't understand about pen numbers and so on but I am curious about it.... Would I be correct in assuming that you can control your line widths and shading by assigning a pen number to a color?? If so how do you control the pen settings?

Anyway I am an individual user, you are probably talking about using Jackson's method while networking with other computers and users.

[rl_jackson]

Joe,

I don't think there is any one method that is more consistent than another per say, any user and still make changes in color. But the method does remove a lot of the thought when it comes to pens and make it easier if you send a file to others. Your basically sending the pen width intended and it can be plotted in most instances with the monochrome ctb.

[Joe-Bouza]

Yes Multi user.

the pen assignment is nearly identical to using the object weight assignment. The virtual pen assignment is merely to assign for black and white vs color prints. virtual pen 7 is always black and virtual pen # tell acad to plot that color; 256 colors 256 pens 

[Anonymous]

Hi there, "has anyone used transparency before" Yes I already done using transparency well I think if your drawing has no image attached or overlaid in your drawing theres no need to use transparency using tranparency is most applicable and effective when there are images attached to it especially if image role was just as background. Regarding your other concern I'd never used "object lineweight" when plotting or printing my drawing t'was already my standard to use ctb or stb saveas as my plotstyle when plotting from civil 3D or from autocad drawing to avoid difference from their lineweight because I only used one plotstyle..