Cable and Harness wire colors on drawing

[b.graaf]

I have a cable and harness assembly. In the 3D model, all wire colors look bright and sharp.

If I make a nailboard drawing and print it out, or make a pdf, then the wire colors are also bright and good.

If I place a 3D view of the Harness (shaded) it looks also good on the screen.

But if I print it or export it to pdf, then the colors are dark en almost the same (dark grey to black...). If you have several wire colors, they are difficult to see the individual colors...

I have tried it on several printers.

Maybe it is not a specific Cable and Hanres problem, but does somebody know if this can be solved?

[mcgyvr]

First.. do you have tools..document settings..drawing tab.. Use Bitmap set to "Offline Only"?

Are you printing to a PDF driver or using Inventors save as PDF functionality?.  If printing to PDF have you set its options to "high quality" or whatever you can there?

[b.graaf]

Hello!

Thank you for your quick reply!

Both questions can be aswered with yes!

Bitmap - offline only

Save as pdf (not print to) with highest quality setting.....

[kelly.young]

Hello @b.graaf is this for a pdf from the part(.ipt), assembly(.iam), or from the drawing (.idw)?

If from the drawing select the Options... button in the SaveAs/Export dialogue box. Can change a few settings there.

Doesn't look like it, but is this a 3d pdf by chance?

Please select the Accept as Solution button if a post solves your issue or answers your question.

[mcgyvr]

Ok.. I just tried it myself....

I have the same crappy output with shaded anything saved to (2d) PDF in Inventor..

Its far better when I print to adobe printer (high quality print setting)..

Just another reason to avoid Autodesks PDF functionality and print to pdf instead..

If you don't have a full version of adobe acrobat I'll suggest cute pdf ..its free..

[s.mich]

3rd party PDF printers including CutePDF doesn't seem to work for me... Seems like it has to do with how colors are transferred to PDF. Other shiny surfaces don't transfer right either, but no matter what color I choose in cable and harness library it seems messed up for wires

[Anonymous]

I too am experiencing this problem since installing 2018. It was not a problem in 2017 or previous.

I have the settings as per the advised settings in this thread i.e. 'offline only'. All other colours are ok when exporting an IDW to PDF - it's only the cable and harness colours that degrade and turn a sort of dull grey version.

First image shows the IDW version. Second image shows the exported PDF.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! Are the files originally created in 2016 or earlier? Could you share an example exhibiting the behavior?

Many thanks!

[mcgyvr]

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@johnsonshiue wrote:

Hi! Are the files originally created in 2016 or earlier?

---

Sounds like a pre-qualifier question for a known "issue"..  

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Brian,

It is hard to tell. I suspect this may have something to do with the appearance consolidation we did in 2017 (if no human memory corruption occurs). Some appearance created in older files can look differently in shaded view.

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Hi Johnson, thanks for the response. The files in question were created in Inv 2016. I had migrated and copied the files in question and the problem persists. I have not, however, tried creating a brand new cable & harness part in 2018 and exported that.

Cheers

Jon

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! I think this does sound liker related to the appearance consolidation. The behavior you saw on the original files on 2016 was actually wrong. The shading appearance was a hybrid (Inventor old appearance style simulated in Autodesk appearance style). I believe you should also see the same behavior in the assembly too, right? In order to make the style look as bright as it did in the old style, you will need to edit the appearance style and tweak the brightness.

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Hi there. The problem doesn't appear in either the IAM model or the IDW, only the exported PDF or DWF. Hopefully you can see the screenshots below of the IAM, IDW and PDF views. It seems the assembly and drawing views are fine, it's something that's happening during export.

IAM viewIDW viewExported PDF view

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! Could you share the files here or send them to me (johnson.shiue@autodesk.com)? I would like to understand the behavior better and find a logical explanation.

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Hi Johnson, I have shared a folder with you in A360, called "Cable and Harness P&G". Please let me know if this doesn't work.

Many thanks

Jon

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Jonathan,

Many thanks for sharing the files with me! I see the issue now. This has something to do with how vectored view is exported to a bitmap. For some reason, I cannot explain, the colors are off in PDF and DWF. I do find a good alternative workflow though. Try this.

1) Open the drawing.

2) Go to Tools -> Document Settings -> Drawing -> Shaded Views -> change "Use Bitmap" to "Always" and set "Bitmap Resolution" to 300dpi -> Apply -> Close.

3) Export it to PDF.

You will see it looks the same as what you saw in Inventor.

Many thanks!

[s.mich]

Hello,

I just tried this, but now I'm just seeing the dull, greyish colors in the DWG file. While it is, the same color as the PDF, it still does not match what is seen in the IAM file where they are much more vibrant.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Jonathan,

I am sorry I cannot explain the behavior. I was able to get a nicer PDF using our internal build. I can send you as a proof. I did not want to attach it here without your permission. I have uploaded to your A360 share.

I think there is a bug here I have to say. It is possible it has been fixed on internal build but not yet available in a update. I need to work with the project team to understand it better.

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Hi Johnson

Thanks for trying it and uploading, I'll take a look and try out the workaround you suggested and report back.

Cheers

Jonathan

[Anonymous]

Just to say I've tried the workaround as suggested above and I'm still getting the dull grey-ish colours as before when exporting to PDF.