topic Re: Pensets....Pensets...Pensets..and viewmap settings!! in Modeling

Pensets....Pensets...Pensets..and viewmap settings!!

rob2218 — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 19:31:54 GMT

hubboy.
see attached.
I need some opinions here.

Re: Pensets....Pensets...Pensets..and viewmap settings!!

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:01:58 GMT

ArchiCAD is giving us more control for pen sets then we actually need.
1.Every view can have its own pen set
2.When placed on layout, view becomes a drawing and you can assign other pen set to it
3. Above all , in you can override it by changing color in drawing setting to grayscale, black and white, or color...

In your case, as I can see, view has already "all black" pen set, so changing color option on drawing settings will have no effect...

Re: Pensets....Pensets...Pensets..and viewmap settings!!

rob2218 — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:12:30 GMT

Here is where I can see a sheet like this taking advantage of the settings I've specified above.....where you have 2d viewmaps that print in "Black and White" and where you have viewmaps that will contained "rendered" (color) imagery....whether they be rendered from AC or come in as JPG's from a field report or whatever.....point I'm trying to make is "what's better for viewmap pen setups"?

Re: Pensets....Pensets...Pensets..and viewmap settings!!

JaredBanks — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:48:32 GMT

Here's my thoughts:

http://www.shoegnome.com/tag/pen-sets/

I believe you should always print in color (ei by pen set), with your pen sets controlling what is black, white, grayscale, or color.

Re: Pensets....Pensets...Pensets..and viewmap settings!!

JaredBanks — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:49:28 GMT

ps - nice renderings! Lightworks?

Re: Pensets....Pensets...Pensets..and viewmap settings!!

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 21:47:14 GMT

I like to create a pen set for each type of view. Also layer combination, view options and all the view filters.

My personal trick is to give to each filter the same name, which is the name of the view, so it is very easy to manage views on the view schedule - google translate this: http://architruques.blogspot.com/2010/05/indice-de-vistas.html

For instance, if I have an Inverted ceiling plan, I also have a layer combination, a pen set, a view option etc that are called "Inverted Ceiling Plan". Through the schedule I can quickly make sure every filters are rightly applied to every view.

Re: Pensets....Pensets...Pensets..and viewmap settings!!

rob2218 — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 22:39:07 GMT

All good points folks....now here's my other delima also associated to the pensets and thicknesses issues of objects...see attached image.

The renderings were indeed done with Lightworks but out of the AC15 box lightworks.....yes...

Re: Pensets....Pensets...Pensets..and viewmap settings!!

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:47:06 GMT

The simple answer is if you want to show different line thickness you have to use a different pen number.

Here's how my pen sets work:

I have a pen set for the model, and one for the layout. They have identical line thicknesses, but the Layout set has pens 1-10 print black. I can see what thickness I am going to get quickly in the model by colour*, knowing they will be black when on the Layout.

So that's my two main pen sets.

I also have two more that have pens 1-10 set to thinner lineweights, (but still black on Layouts) for things like Electrical plans, Framing plans, etc. and use pens 11-20 (excluding 19 of course, as that is always "white") for specific elements (light fixtures, etc.) which are set to thicker lines, and black on Layouts. This way my walls etc are thin, and fixtures "pop out".

My Views are always set to Colour, so I can easily see if I have a rogue coloured line in there somewhere, and also as we often use colour in Elevations.

Simple but works for me.

* colour (NZ) = color ('merica)

Re: Pensets....Pensets...Pensets..and viewmap settings!!

Karl Ottenstein — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:57:21 GMT

Rob,

There are lots of posts about pen sets and standards with critical information here. But, you and others have my sympathy for not being able to find them as the forum "Search" link above will not search for anything with 3 characters or less ("pen") among other deficiencies.

Use Vistasp's custom Google search page to search for topics concerning pen sets:

http://archicadstuff.blogspot.com/

In the posts that you'll find will be some by Link and me noting that certain pens are used as the defaults by library parts in the standard library. Minimally, pens 1 through 10, 19 and 91. Plus the gray scale. Link noticed another dozen pens by thoroughly examining the entire library.

Changing the thickness of these pens in your pen sets will change the default appearance of those lib parts. In general, it might be best to leave them alone and to use any other pens as your custom color/widths.

In the case of the light symbols and cabinets, as Stuart notes, your only real option is to use a different pen for one or the other - e.g., change the parameter for the placed object(s).

(You can play games with overlaying a cabinet view - with one version of pen 4 - on top of an electrical plan view - with a different thickness for pen 4. But that gets unwieldy pretty quickly.)

In the (hundreds of) posts about pen sets, you'll find some people who assign pens-per-function, and others who use a small number of pens-by-width. Depends on the amount of complexity you want to manage, as well as how many different ways the same item needs to appear in different drawings.

Cheers,
Karl

Re: Pensets....Pensets...Pensets..and viewmap settings!!

Steve Jepson — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 01:09:29 GMT

in addition to some of the options already listed I like to do one more thing.

If you select all the pens in the first column and set them to .1mm
all the pens in the second column and set them to .2mm
all the pens in the third column and set them to .3mm... so on and so on for columns 1-9 so you can know the pen weight of any pen in these columns just by looking at its pen number. The last digit of the pen number will be the pen weight.
Pen 135 will be .5mm, 121=.1 247=.7 152=.2 etc...
I set column 10 to .01 mm so I have a hairline in each color as well.

I set all the rows to a different color, the top row to black.
This way I have a pen of every size in any of the row colors.

Most plans only use a few black pens for the top row.

The advantage is that I always know what size the pen is just by looking at the number. And I can can have that pen size in every color which helps in sorting things and making things visible. More importantly for me is that when I set to mm it gives me a reference to something I know. Remember the Pentel leads we used to use? They came in .3mm, .5mm, .7mm, .9mm. There was a time when we had to set up our ArchiCAD pen sets to match the pen plotters which were also in these same familiar sizes. I have no intuition for Pt pen size. The other 1/2 of the pens I never use except I do use a white pen and also the grey pens.

Re: Pensets....Pensets...Pensets..and viewmap settings!!

Barry Kelly — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 01:52:16 GMT

Steve wrote:
I set column 10 to .01 mm so I have a hairline in each color as well.

You could set this pen thickness to zero (0 mm) to keep your pen number / pen size idea consistent.

A zero thickness will still give you a hairline.

Barry.

Re: Pensets....Pensets...Pensets..and viewmap settings!!

Steve Jepson — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 02:20:00 GMT

Thanks. I will do that.

Re: Pensets....Pensets...Pensets..and viewmap settings!!

rob2218 — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:07:39 GMT

Steve....your method of setting the columns to 0.1, 0.2 etc...is ok..but there are objects all over the library that use pen colors that are in other objects....hence my problem.

The light objects use PEN NO.4....the lavatory objects use PEN NO.4....as well......why they were programmed like, why the GS programmers didn't just separate and assign objects with different pens is beyond me but.....it's a hassle to say the least. I need a solution for when you insert an object out of the box with a certain pen number....in this case pen 4....that is not the same pen number as another object. I've only scratched the surface on this issue...I'm sure there are many other objects that have the same problem...that they are sharing the same pen number and therefore once the penset is set to thick or thin....ALL objects with that pen number will be that thickness no matter what penset a user uses.........And I'd hate to be changing the pen numbers for the objects. that's not a good practice at all, because once you insert an object, change it's pen numbered assigned out of the box, then as soon as you grab another of the same type of object from the AC15 Library...you are stuck with having to change it's pen number again.............which is not good.

Re: Pensets....Pensets...Pensets..and viewmap settings!!

Barry Kelly — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 01:14:19 GMT

rob2218 wrote:
The light objects use PEN NO.4....the lavatory objects use PEN NO.4....as well......why they were programmed like, why the GS programmers didn't just separate and assign objects with different pens is beyond me but.....it's a hassle to say the least.

Graphisoft may be happy that the lights and lavatory objects use the same pen colour.
As a user on the other hand you may not.

rob2218 wrote:
I need a solution for when you insert an object out of the box with a certain pen number....in this case pen 4....that is not the same pen number as another object.

The only options (I can think of) that you have are:
- modify the original library parts to set the pens you want - a problem when the library gets updated.
- copy and rename the object then modify the pens - library updates won't affect this but then you will also need to update (or replace) your copied object if you feel it is necessary.
- manually change the pen colour of the placed object every time you insert one.
- set up some favourites - this is probably the best option as updated libraries should not be affected (new version (i.e. 16) may be an issue though requiring the favourites to be updated as well).

Barry.