How do I screen a pen in ArchiCad and Plotmaker

[Anonymous]

How do I set a pen to a screened color in ArchiCad and have it also screen in Plotmaker?

[Karl Ottenstein]

Pens cannot be transluscent.

But, you can create fills that use a white pen and a transparent background to create screens. For example, the 25% fill (and variants - denser fill, fatter white pen).

If I understand the question...

Karl

[Anonymous]

I must not be asking the right question. What I am trying to do is make certain parts of the drawing less prominent. I.e. screening walls so the electrical symbols stand out. The situation I'm currently working on is a plan to show erosion control over the elements on the site plan. I want the erosion control measures to standout and the other parts of the site plan to be faded. Does this make sense?
Thanks
Caitlin

[Anonymous]

Sorry Karl,
I tried what you suggested and it accomplished what I was trying to achieve. You understand my questions, I didn't understand your answer until I tried it. Thanks for the help....this is going to make things a lot easier in the future.
Caitlin

[Nick Schat]

Caitlin,
If the elements you want highlighted are on separate layers then another trick is to import the drawing/view in plotmaker with the layers you want 'screened' in the settings dialogue set to greyscale. Copy this drawing/view and switch the layers to those that need to be highlighted and set settings dialogue to black and white. You may have to alter drawing-pens & colours of the screened drawing to get the right effect (ie. black remains black in greyscale) and some experimentation may be necessary.
We use the same technique for drawings that need to have parts in colour. I hope this is of some use to you.

Regards,

[Anonymous]

Thanks Nick,
I'll give this a try as well.
Caitlin

[Scott Bulmer]

Another alternate for electric or structural plans; make an object out of walls only and place in alignment (using hotspots) with the actual walls, and on an independent layer. You create the electric plan view (in View Set) with the walls object on, actual walls off and electric symbols on. Then in the Object Selection Settings dialog box under Floor Plan parameters for the walls object, set the pen color to a light unique color (do not use Use Symbols Colors). Later in plotmaker for that View Set drawing, you will set all pens to black except for the light color you want to make faded out/screened effect. If using a monochrome plotter, select Plot With Color. The value of the pen color will determine how faded out it will appear when plotted. Hope this helps.
Scott

[Karl Ottenstein]

Yes, now that I hear what you want, Nick's solution - and variants - may very well be the way to go here: using grayscale pens for the 'screened' elements.

The decision to go with gray pens vs a 'screening fill' as I first described, depends on how easy it is to create a view/drawing that contains only the elements to be screened (place in PM and use gray as Nick says), or to distinguish the elements to appear lighter by assigning specific pen number to them (and changing those pens to gray in PM for that drawing - with the drawing having its own pen table).

Some things cannot be solved with either of the above. (Your situation can be I believe.) For example, I have a home with 45 degree wings, and so have 8 elevations. I use the 25% white/transparent screening 'fill' to make the angled wings lighter in the elevations. Using 'distant area' of the section tool does not cut those wings properly and they use the same pens as the face-on portions of the elevations, so a screening fill to mask them is my only option.

Between these three solutions, you can make anything happen. 😉

Have fun,
Karl

[Scott Bulmer]

Hi Karl,
Your suggested screening approach seems easy and the way to go, but we have not been able to successfully plot the screen: In AC9 placed 20% & 75% fills with white pen color & transparent background (looks good on the monitor) over walls (display order w/ fill on top). Imported view set into PM9 with Display Settings attempted at both Use Element Settings as well as Transparent Background (again, looks goon on monitor). When plotted on an HP700, the screening does not plot even with the white pen set to .7mm thickness. Am I missing a step, or is the plotter not happy?
Thanks so much,
Scott

[Karl Ottenstein]

Sounds strange, Scott. So, you DO see the white screening fill properly in PM .. especially if you set the zoom to 100%? Try printing to PDF ... look OK there? If yes to both of those, then definitely sounds like a plotting issue ... I never plot, only print to our "plotter" (hp500 large format printer), so perhaps that is related to what is going on.

Karl