Improve Line Weights for small scale drawings - Remove .003" limit

[Anonymous]

Currently Revit has a Hard limit of .083mm (see Thinnest Line Weight) when printing. This is perfectly acceptable for large scale drawings but not for 11 x 17 format. Autocad allows users to print down to 0.25mm and offers additional line weight control through screening. Revit should remove the .083 hard limit, which is especially confusing since the limit in the lineweight settings appears to be .001" or 0.0254mm. This is especially apparent when printing to PDF.

Light weights are one of the basic functions of any drafting program. It should be done well, and Revit should represent an improvement on Autocad not a step back!

[Anonymous]

Autodesk, please work on this and the other 'small' issues that your users need

/use everyday. How about for the next release you don't add any features just fix eazy items like this. 

[Anonymous]

Answer day is coming later tonight! Maybe a good time to ask them about this annoying issue.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-architecture-forum/aec-answer-day-coming-here-september-24th/td...

[Anonymous]

Thanks Arthur

I have posted this

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-architecture-forum/printing-line-weight-below-003/td-p/9043894

[Anonymous]

Unlock the line weight's hard limit to be able to print as thin as it's possible on AutoCAD.

[bill_gilliss]

Yes! That would be great for all the dimension lines.

[Yien_Chao]

0.025mm is not thin enough?

[elky853]

This topic is almost two years old and I'm wondering if a solution for this issue was ever discovered?? I'm new to Revit and trying to figure this out for a while...

[JAGADESH.A]

@Anonymous revit community 

Its 2021 and still the Improve Line Weights for small scale drawings - Remove .003" limit has be fullfilled. Please do it, the drafting is not good and the faculty are saying me to redo my draftings,..

[Anonymous]

I am quite annoyed by this issue and would like it to be adressed by Autodesk. 0.083 mm is too big to be considered the thinnest line. Where I'm from 0.13 is considered the normal Autocad line weight, the thinnest line should at most be 0.05. Preferrably 0.00 as in Autocad.

[mosheQG3Y5]

Visiting this post for the first time.. It's been 5 years of complaining about this issue. Please release the hold on the .003" minimum!! This is absurd.

[aashford3Q2J4X]

Putting this back on the table for review... It's 2022 Autodesk Revit.

Plotting issue: Line weights less than 0.003", (ie 0.001" and 0.002") do not plot as specified or as seen on screen. They plot at ONLY 0.003" and not less.

Plotters today have a Minimum Line Width print capability much finer than 0.001". I reached out to Epson and HP out of curiosity. Epson can go as fine as 0.018mm (0.0007") and HP can do 0.02032mm (0.0008"). (I said, well I can't plot to your quality hardware, because Revit can't Output it.)

If Revit allows to set Line Weight as low as 0.001", and plotters today have surpassed this, then why can't Revit plot at least to this limit? AutoCAD's Line weight of 0.000 mm, defaults to the Plot/Print drivers Minimum Line Width.

Anyone else remember plotting to an HPGL2 driver, back in 1997, to a PLT file, prior to PDF's, or to an EPS file for some real nice vector line weights?

WHY has Autodesk NOT done anything for over 15 years on this subject?

Now, I'll play devils advocate...

I do not believe it is Adobe PDF drivers. I tested the driver by going into Illustrator and created super thin line weights. ( 0.001", 0.002", 0.003", 0.004", and 0.005" ) I Exported and Printed a PDF. Both outputs depict the super thin line variations.

Some may ask, "Why in the world do you need anything less than 0.003"? I say, because AutoCAD could do it since EVER. AND I like hatches super thin and clear, not muddy at small scales IE 1/8" 1/16"

BUT... Let's get real.  Contract Drawings need to be reproduced, and some scanners, large format copiers, and or plotters out there may not pick up on these super thin line weights we are asking for. There is also the legibility for those that have a hard time seeing super finite detail line work that requires a magnifying glass or microscope to see! That Illustrator test I did, the PDF looks great, but I printed it on my little HP Office Jet Pro, and all the lines came out looking the same. Which is the limit of the printer. But a plotter, according to HP and Epson, can deliver better results.

Perhaps, Revit "officials" understand this and see no reason for the change, which I can accept. But now I'm going to modify my entire graphic standards from AutoCAD to Revit so that I can work within these limitations. Thanks.

[dnenovMXKU9]

Great post @aashford3Q2J4X ! So, it seems that with a hard stop @ 0.083mm or 0.0033''  Epson can print 5 times thinner than Revit. 😉

Epson is a physical device solving many engineering limitations I bet. The ink goes through the nozzles, pressure, and positioning. Revit, on the other hand, is a digital software system and the only limitations are of bureaucratical and managerial nature. Oh, wait, but that goes for any company, no?! 

The solution is most certainly a single line of code or even a value. Fix this, please!  

[aashford3Q2J4X]

Thanks @dnenovMXKU9.   -  ALL,

New DATA Confirmed:

Around an hour after my post yesterday, 4:52pm, Epson Support responded to further inquiries I had regarding other Plotter models in respect to line weights. At first the Epson support specialist informed me that all models should print with similar precision. However, I was skeptical with that summation. Based on all the various prices, from $800± to $7000±, I simply did not accept production speed was the rising cost factor, but must certainly be for quality.

The earlier information I had provided is confirmed for their top of the line "Large Office Production" series the Sure Color T7270, a 44" wide plotter that prints a Minimum Line Width of 0.018mm (0.0007").

(Disclaimer, I like Epson, but I'm not selling Epson, only providing data.)

I had asked him to provide the "Minimum Line Width" specs on their smaller models for "Home & Small Office", their 24" plotters, the Sure Color T2170 and T3170 series, as a comparison to the larger. According to this email, [Incident: 220629-002389], "0.07 mm is the minimum line width." This equates to 0.00275591" ! That is a considerable difference in quality from the large office versions to the home office versions. No equality in Plotting quality per dollar, suspicion confirmed!

Conclusion:

While as much as I and many other like minded professionals that desire precision detail and high end quality line types to the finest infinite detail, I can see that the allowance of such precision is almost meaningless if you do not obtain (own) the supreme level of hardware that is proficient in executing such a highly detailed task. Let alone, you can not control the reproduction quality through other outfits, as previously touched upon, where their reproduction or printing quality is inferior to your equipment. Additionally, if you are operating with lower costing plotters, you will most likely be limited in ever plotting super fine line weights. As you can see with the Epson Sure Color T2170 & T3170 series, the "Minimum Line Width" is in fact 0.07mm or 0.0028" (rounded up in Revit world). While this does in fact fall below the 0.003" it is not even considerable. But we can still argue that there is professional hardware that can do it and therefore designers, artisans, draftsmen and skilled line weight enthusiasts along with all their other professions, should demand a change in moving this forward after 15 years of neglect.

Digital Line Weights: A Critical Analysis into the past. Part 1

Reflection:

Sometimes we all forget our past, and many today never experienced it. A small part of my past was actually teaching Higher Education (college) (2000-2005). One of the courses I instructed was architectural drafting. Then, the college still was teaching manual drafting techniques. Which I advocated they continue eternally, as many educational institutions across the country were abandoning this fundamental foundation of study and much needed and underestimated importance in upholding the craft of the skilled draftsman(person). I can see how many can argue there is no need, but I point out the critical nature of how skills are truly developed, through all the senses. A student that knew how it felt to apply pressure to the lead and mindfully control rolling the lead between their fingers to maintain a point and see the weight of the line and its consistency being applied became a true art form. The smell of the lead became ingrained into your life. You could even sort of taste the graphite dust particles and feel and see the underside of your palm with smears of graphite on your white work shirt or even your cheeks or brow getting an unknown smudge of the material, you carried all day. It showed the work you did everyday, it tied you to your labors. Sharpening the lead, like no other kind of pencil, was unique to our professions... we truly had a bond to it and it bonded us to our professions. It is a lost art, but hopefully not forgotten.

In Reflecting on the past, I think of one of the skills that were critical in drawing on paper, where you did not have the luxury of rapid and easy editing, as we have today in CAD/BIM (digital mediums). Every line, then, was intended to be permanent with the hope of none or very limited editing. A mass edit required a whole new drawing. To eliminate mistakes we would plan out our sheets and designs strategically. One of the methods that helped this was producing what is known as "construction lines" in drafting. A construction line was drawn as thin as possible and very faintly, so that they could be easily erased and impossible for reproduction through a chemical blueprinting process. You could barely see it on the vellum. (A type of paper we would draft on with lead or INK, yea ink... Mylar was cool too!) (Vellum was originally made with animal skin, modern vellum is plasticized and paper based.)

So when thinking of how we draft today with line weights, our construction lines are like Defpoints, or NO Plot layers in AutoCAD or Invisible lines in Revit. We could say that they are the 0.000mm or 0.001" weights in the computer. We can see them, but they should not plot. As we know the Revit system does not allow to plot any line thinner than 0.003", therefore this is our minimum weight for our senses to grasp, and the average plotting machines can not produce anything much better than this anyway, thus the construction line must be turned off.

By Anthony P. Ashford

[mariamkhachatryan020]

0.025 is not thin enough ((( In comparison with AutoCAD's 0.000 it is too thick.

[mark.winnington]

Dear Autodesk,

In reference to the 'hard limit of 0.083' stated on the Autodesk website link below:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/What-is-...

Please remove this hard limit - it has been highlighted here on this forum by many users many times that it is unnecessary. Having had to explain this to countless architectural practices and senior architects across London over the last 12 years, nobody can understand why this hard limit exists.

It is challenging year after year to explain to architects in 2022 who are relying on viewing, presenting and communicating 2D drawings via computer screens and video calls that Revit cannot print to PDF with a line weight thinner than 0.083mm. There are no negative consequences PDF printing or physically printing using thinner line weights and has been common practice across generations of AutoCAD users in the last two decades. If for any reason Autodesk are worried there are Revit users who think otherwise then those users can simply change their Revit settings to use 0.083 as their lowest line weight.

What is difficult to understand is why Revit allows 0.025 to be viewed inside Revit but yet we are unable to print these to PDF. It mentions on the above website that, “Additionally, there is a hard limit of 0.0033” (or 0.083mm). To advocate for the removal of this hard limit, vote on this Revit Ideas forum post,” however there is no explanation why this exists. 

Below is an illustration of the display output of PDFs from AutoCAD and Revit. It illustrates a generic 100mm thick wall with an example of a hatch and an example of a finish. It shows why the hard limit of 0.083mm PDF output affects how we read drawings and hinders our ability to communicate. Both 0.09 and 0.025 have been applied inside AutoCAD and inside Revit (with 0.025 being Revit's minimum)

1:50 PDF exports

1:100 PDF exports

[joelsj]

It´s now Revit 2023 and still the same. 

[mosheQG3Y5]

Seemingly such an easy thing to fix.. Permit offices and clients around the world will be happier if we could get this change implemented.

[aashford3Q2J4X]

I believe Autodesk is going to have to substantiate their increase in product cost quickly, before a collective of people form a group to create their own ultimate CAD/BIM/Viz software. (im in btw) It is deplorable, when small businesses are getting to a point of having to go elsewhere for their software because of the cost and things that seem to never improve. I know it was a lot more of a cost in the past, but at least you could keep the same version for ever and upgrade when you want. Now it is a forced prescription that is expensive. Updates, yes, Improvements Rare.

Cut the Executive Fat Autodesk and slim down the prices that reflect the actual product delivery.

[f.annoscia1XRNMD]

Please, Autodesk, correct this limitation. It is not possible to stop at a thickness of 0.85 mm! I have problems with all my work. Thank you.

[akord2015]

The bug is still present in Revit 2024