topic Re: Scaling Pen Weights for Layouts in Documentation

Scaling Pen Weights for Layouts

Steve Jepson — Fri, 26 May 2023 00:25:17 GMT

What is the current method for getting a View made and saved in say 1/4" scale, to show pen weights at a different scale like 1/16"=1'0" ?
Or the other way around - perhaps a 1/4" scale drawing/view that we want to display in Layout as 1"=1'-0" with line widths correct at that scale.

Do we still have to make a special pen sets for that?

Re: Scaling Pen Weights for Layouts

Laszlo Nagy — Sun, 17 Sep 2017 14:48:11 GMT

I would probably use a separate Pen Set as you mentioned.

Re: Scaling Pen Weights for Layouts

Steve Jepson — Sun, 17 Sep 2017 18:58:45 GMT

I have been do thing that for decades but I was just hoping that there was a better way now. I guess not.

Re: Scaling Pen Weights for Layouts

Barry Kelly — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 01:28:22 GMT

You should be saving different views of your detail for each different scale (rather than trying to scale the drawing in the layout).
So each view will have a different scale setting, maybe different layer combination (if you want annotation to suit each scale), maybe different MVO and GO combinations, and it is here you can set a different pen set that adjusts the pen thicknesses suitable for each scale.

Each view will have exactly the settings you want for that particular view.

So yes different pen sets are the way to go still.

Barry.

Re: Scaling Pen Weights for Layouts

Steve Jepson — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 03:31:05 GMT

Yes. I do that. But some times I am trying to squeeze elevations, site plan, floor plans, a couple of sections and some schedules all on to one 11x17 sheet for a meeting or something. It's not a problem very often but it does seem to me like everything in the drawings should be scaled with what ever size we need the drawing to be in Layout. It isn't always possible to know what scale the drawings will be when they are going to used for so many purposes, on so many different sheet sizes.

In a pinch, I do some things with the .pdfs to take care of this. It seems to me like it would not be that difficult to add some code for that to the program. It would scale the all the pen sizes in a drawing relative to the originally used pen sizes it was made with.

Re: Scaling Pen Weights for Layouts

Richard Morrison — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 20:53:16 GMT

Steve wrote:
It would scale the all the pen sizes in a drawing relative to the originally used pen sizes it was made with.

I'm not totally clear on how you want pen weights to scale. If you shrink a 1/4" plan down to 1/8", are you wanting the line weights to be 1/2 size, too? (As if you reduced a PDF.) Or are you wanting the weights to essentially stay the same visually, regardless of scale? There is the issue of text sizes, too. Not sure what your intent is there.

Re: Scaling Pen Weights for Layouts

Steve Jepson — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 21:03:33 GMT

I needed to prepare some drawings for use in a pre-application conference meeting. What goes in the drawing are some simple drawings to explain things and mostly for conversational purposes. The problem is that I have everything looking the way I want it for the real drawings, but when they are shrunk down to tiny the line weights for things like fills are too thick. The fills are used in a pseudo site plan with building info for the sake of scheduling Areas. Attached is a screen shot. I had to play around with the scale the drawings are saved in, and then the scale that will work so they all fit on one small sheet. It was not too big a problem but is would be great if everything in the original drawing would just be scaled to what evert the new scale of the layout is going to be.

https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/2ac67a12-c572-4adc-bf87-0bc1e50ba40c

I hate making these little drawings because it take so much work to show only what is wanted for the meetings. It will work for what its for I guess.

Re: Scaling Pen Weights for Layouts

Eduardo Rolon — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 21:22:37 GMT

Posible workflow:
1. Publish the particular drawings to PDF.
2. Place the PDF in Layout Book
3. Edit Placed PDF to be 50%
----
Since the line weights are already "baked in" when you change the scale they will automatically change.

Re: Scaling Pen Weights for Layouts

Steve Jepson — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 21:34:44 GMT

Yes. That works for this sort of occasional thing. But would it really be so difficult to have an auto-scale option for Drawings in a Layout?

Re: Scaling Pen Weights for Layouts

Richard Morrison — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 21:59:36 GMT

You might try publishing views to DWF or PMK or another format, and see if these work any better for you. Auto-scaling is not something that I can help you with.

Increasing line thickness factor in drawings in Layout

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 03:31:21 GMT

Hi

Is there anyway in ARCHICAD to bump up the line weight of a drawing in a layout by a factor?

E.g. I have two detail drawings. One is 1:10 one is 1:5
The two drawings are of the same Detail but saved with different views, one view at 1:10 and one view at 1:5

When I lay them out on the drawing I want the line weights for the 1:5 drawing to be the same as twice as thick as the 1:10 drawing

In Vectorworks there was a way in the Viewport settings to bump this up by a factor

I'd rather not have to set up scale specific Pen sets in archicad to achieve this

Any tips?

Ben

Re: Increasing line thickness factor in drawings in Layout

Barry Kelly — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 04:59:20 GMT

benjamin_chan wrote:
Is there anyway in ARCHICAD to bump up the line weight of a drawing in a layout by a factor?

I have merged this topic with another that was already being discussed about the same thing.

I really don't think automatic scaling of line thickness will work.
You may not want all lines to increase (thin lines you might not want to make thicker) or decrease (already thin lines will get to thin).

I think the best way is to have alternate pen sets.
This way you can control the pens you want to change or not.
But some of the other options here may help.

Barry.

Re: Scaling Pen Weights for Layouts

Erwin Edel — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 07:56:20 GMT

In the world of A-size sheets, I generally keep a lot of my layouts on A1 sheets, which means I can print them on A3 at 50%, which is generally usable (can still read the text) and that does scale the weight in the way you describe, allthough at some point the printer just cannot print lines at a smaller weight.

However, if I would be producing a 'tiny' set of drawings on regular basis, and would consider a custom pen set for that, I would just copy my cloned views and assign the pen set and name this set for the 50% printing. Put some standard layouts for this in my template and every project I start has this workflow set up.

As an example, when I do the BIMx with floor plans, sections and such included, I find that the presentation trick of showing your drawing in the 3D works best when all the drawings are on their own sheet. I don't generally print out the projects this way, but I have created a BIMx layout set in my template for this reason only.

Re: Scaling Pen Weights for Layouts

Steve Jepson — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 16:08:28 GMT

Erwin wrote:
In the world of A-size sheets, I generally keep a lot of my layouts on A1 sheets, which means I can print them on A3 at 50%, which is generally usable (can still read the text) and that does scale the weight in the way you describe, allthough at some point the printer just cannot print lines at a smaller weight.

However, if I would be producing a 'tiny' set of drawings on regular basis, and would consider a custom pen set for that, I would just copy my cloned views and assign the pen set and name this set for the 50% printing. Put some standard layouts for this in my template and every project I start has this workflow set up.

As an example, when I do the BIMx with floor plans, sections and such included, I find that the presentation trick of showing your drawing in the 3D works best when all the drawings are on their own sheet. I don't generally print out the projects this way, but I have created a BIMx layout set in my template for this reason only.

Exactly. So even if we had automatic scaling in Layouts we would still want to have special pen sets for many things, and for many reasons.
But I still think it would be useful for many situations.

I find that I am having to print out odd scale drawings for people more, sooner and sooner in the process of producing the final set of working drawings. I just don't like having to fuss with drawings I already have perfected at the end use scale for the sake of all the requests for drawings along the way to the final set. Why can't they just wait until I am finished
!!! Make just one set and if they can use it fine, if not, too bad.

Re: Scaling Pen Weights for Layouts

JohnJay — Fri, 11 Feb 2022 15:10:48 GMT

@Steve Jepson wrote:

But I still think it would be useful for many situations.

I find that I am having to print out odd scale drawings for people more, sooner and sooner in the process of producing the final set of working drawings. I just don't like having to fuss with drawings I already have perfected

Agree completely

Doesn't make sense not to have the option to scale pen weights along with everything else

Why have to keep and maintain several identical pen sets rather than just have a check box to scale pen weights?