topic Re: B&W Layout drawings? in Documentation

B&W Layout drawings?

Anonymous — Fri, 26 May 2023 14:40:07 GMT

How can I make the drawings in my layout appear black & white? Ie. no colors or grayscale, just black lines and the rest white.

I tried to make ALL colors in the pen set white, still the drawing appears with filled areas in color, the rest is white. When I choose B&W the drawing appears in gray scale.

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

Bob Moore — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 13:28:05 GMT

Which version of Archicad are you using?

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 13:47:38 GMT

I'm using AC13

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 13:51:34 GMT

The colors are presumably zones. They use their own RGB background per the zone settings rather than pen colors. You can change the zone settings, the display options or hide the layer as appropriate to your needs.

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 14:34:34 GMT

Matthew wrote:
The colors are presumably zones. They use their own RGB background per the zone settings rather than pen colors. You can change the zone settings, the display options or hide the layer as appropriate to your needs.

The colors are slabs, walls, various materials and roofs. In the drawing layout it's all on the same layer, the Drawing and Figure. Hiding it will hide everything.

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 14:45:50 GMT

Thomasx wrote:
The colors are slabs, walls, various materials and roofs.

This is strange since these are all drawn with pens. Besides zones the only other conditions I can think of that use RGB color are 3D shaded/rendered views and perhaps the cover fills of slabs and roofs (I'd have to check this latter possibility).

In the drawing layout it's all on the same layer, the Drawing and Figure. Hiding it will hide everything.

The drawing is on one layer in the layout but the elements within the drawing (in its source view) presumably are on multiple layers.

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 15:01:10 GMT

Matthew wrote:

The drawing is on one layer in the layout but the elements within the drawing (in its source view) presumably are on multiple layers.

Yes, but I don't want to change the source view. Unless I really really have to just to get the drawings right. Yet another AC workaround, I guess...

Thanx for trying to help me out, I really appreciate it.

Thomas

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 15:22:37 GMT

Thomas,

I think you would benefit from some hands on in person training or perhaps just some user group meetings if such are available near you. You seem to make a lot of assumptions about how ArchiCAD should work without talking the time to find out how it does work. And it does work very well for many thousands of users.

I agree that the tutorials could be better but from what I've seen this is an industry wide problem. The documentation at least is far better than the help files and manuals that come with Revit.

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 15:48:03 GMT

Matthew, honestly, in most cases with AC, it's not that I make assumptions about how it should work, but rather that it should work. I don't care too much about how it works, as long as it does work. In my world, any cad-program should be able to output plain b&w outline drawings, I assume AC should be able to too. So far I have found no way to do that. You seem like an AC-experienced person and yet seem somewhat surprised by the problem I am facing. I don't know if that is because I am failing with what is normaly a simple thing to do and the questions is what did I do wrong, or because I am trying to do something no-one tried before. The latter would surprise me because I've seen the same types of drawings in the states too, so they're probably not too uncommon over there either. My question remains, how do i get b&w outline drawings out of ac?

Matthew wrote:
The documentation at least is far better than the help files and manuals that come with Revit.

So, actually what you are saying is that AC is not the worst... 😉

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

Eduardo Rolon — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:17:53 GMT

Just to be sure.

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

Eduardo Rolon — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:18:12 GMT

Just to be sure.

Is this what you want to do?

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

Eduardo Rolon — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:18:50 GMT

In Layout.

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

Eduardo Rolon — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:19:29 GMT

Placed Drawing Settings.

Click on Pen Set.

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

Eduardo Rolon — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:21:13 GMT

Partial list of Pen Sets for CD's

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:52:55 GMT

Hi Eduardo

Yes, more or less. But I am looking at the north/south/east/west elevations of the exterior, and the walls, roof, etc are filled with colors. I did try to change pen sets, but it didn't do the trick.

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:00:05 GMT

Thomasx wrote:
Hi Eduardo

Yes, more or less. But I am looking at the north/south/east/west elevations of the exterior, and the walls, roof, etc are filled with colors. I did try to change pen sets, but it didn't do the trick.

Check in the elevation settings. You will have 'Fill Uncut Surfaces With' set to 'Own Material Colours'. Change this to 'Nothing' and you will get just the edge lines.

Also check you have 'Vectorial 3D Hatching' ticked to be able to see the fills on the surfaces correctly.

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

Eduardo Rolon — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:03:03 GMT

I assume that your Elevations look like this.

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

Eduardo Rolon — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:04:08 GMT

In layout they will look like this even though you have changed the Pen Settings.

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

Eduardo Rolon — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:06:27 GMT

If so you have to change the elevation Settings to Nothing.

Re: B&W Layout drawings?

JaredBanks — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:06:38 GMT

I was just about to mention that it is an 'Own Material Colours' issue. It always pays to be very precise. None of us knew it was an elevation or section at first! I've attached an image of the setting.

Additionally, for some more thoughts on black and white drawings, I recently did a blog post about it here: blog post

And ArchiCAD gets easier. It's just annoying at first.