Pen weight & Templates

[Dennis Lee]

Hi, I just got my hands on AC9. I've been through the training guide level 1 & 2, and have managed to grasp some of the basic concepts of the virtual building. I have also been reading this forum for a while, but can't seem to find a definitive answer on:

1) What is the best way to set up your pen weights ? - considering the AC9 library objects' predefined colors, as well as other common objects such as MSA detailer. Seems like MSA and MaxATS as well as default ArchiCAD all have different pen setups.

2) Related to the above question, which template / detailer should one start off using? Or am I expected to start off with blank ArchiCAD and build my own?

I'm very concerned about the plot quality, so I'd like to know what pen I should use to model everything before I do everything. I mean even when I'm drawing my first title block, I need to use some sort of "pens" to get this set up, right? Is there a "best practice" concerning this kind of stuff?

[Anonymous]

Paul wrote:
Hi Matthew - do you still subscribe to the pen color by function philosophy under AC11?
I am struggling to understand the benefits of the default international pen tables, which seem to be set up with that in mind.

I haven't had a look at the international pens yet since everyone I work with uses some variation of mine, but yes I still consider the pen by function approach to vital in a virtual building workflow. In my template the elements have pens set by default and vast bulk of things are drawn with the first ten pens. This makes it pretty easy to remember.

You will also notice that pens 11 - 20 have the function of being a specific line weight at all times. So if you just want a 0.25mm pen you can just pick the appropriate one (13 usually).

[Anonymous]

Hello Matthew,
I downloaded your pen settings example.pdf
and studied it and I have a question.
I noticed that pen #1 is .5 point and is used
for section contour lines in plan and section
and this prompts me to ask, what scale
do you or your clients usually use for
building plans.
The office I work in usually does plans at 1/4"=1'-0"
and the section contour pen weight is 2.0 point.
This has always looked very heavy to me
and I always wondered what others used
and at what scale.
Thank you,
Peter Devlin

[Anonymous]

Peter wrote:
Hello Matthew,
I downloaded your pen settings example.pdf
and studied it and I have a question.
I noticed that pen #1 is .5 point and is used
for section contour lines in plan and section
and this prompts me to ask, what scale
do you or your clients usually use for
building plans.
The office I work in usually does plans at 1/4"=1'-0"
and the section contour pen weight is 2.0 point.
This has always looked very heavy to me
and I always wondered what others used
and at what scale.
Thank you,
Peter Devlin

That's 0.5 mm (about 1.42 pts) and yes that is for plans and sections at 1/4" or 1:50 scale. For 1/8" or 1:100 scale I/we usually use an output pen set with pen 1 set to 0.35 mm. Naturally there are variations depending on the style and preferences of each firm and, sometimes, quirks of the printers (or plotters).

Outlines at 2.0 pts does seem awfully heavy for 1/4" drawings. Maybe it would work to really pop the outlines in 1 1/2" details - but it would still obscure some trim profiles even at that scale.

[Anonymous]

Hello Matthew,
Thanks for posting back. Sorry I missed the pen weights were
in mms not pts. Thank you for answering my long standing questions.
Yes, a 1/2" thick casing is buried in the wall contour line
when set to 2.0 pt and also just makes the drawing look to brutal,
to me anyway but the boss loves it and has threatened to make
it even thicker.
Thanks,
Peter Devlin

[Anonymous]

I have a question about colors - I notice that most of the pen settings I've seen have a lot of pens set to colors rather than black - does this mean that you are plotting in multiple colors or is that just for viewing/working?

I think I saw somewhere (I'm still new to AC) that there is a plot in black and white setting but in the past programs that did this interpreted the colors to be varied grey scales which never looked good. Is this how AC works as well?

[Karl Ottenstein]

Chris wrote:
I have a question about colors - I notice that most of the pen settings I've seen have a lot of pens set to colors rather than black - does this mean that you are plotting in multiple colors or is that just for viewing/working?

I think I saw somewhere (I'm still new to AC) that there is a plot in black and white setting but in the past programs that did this interpreted the colors to be varied grey scales which never looked good. Is this how AC works as well?

Personally, the colors are generally only for working views. The placed views (drawings) are assigned pensets with black and grayscale values in my workflow. I do not use 'all to black' because I want precise control over the mapping.

I use groups of pens of a particular color by function, with increasing line width. By doing this, I can re-map anything to anything else on a layout. For example, composite skins can be made white to pseudo-hide them, or perhaps the core might be displayed in red in a markup plot, etc. Pens that are not yet assigned functions are mapped to a color in the drawing pen sets so that if I see color, I know that an incorrect pen was used somewhere.

I have a variety of drawing pen tables depending on the scale/nature of the placed drawing. For example, a 1 1/2" scale detail will have all pen widths from the black/grayscale table multiplied by a factor that gives an attractive print at that scale (thin pens look stupid/ugly on large scale details IMHO).

Karl

[Anonymous]

Thanks Karl - very helpful!

[Paul King]

Matthew wrote:
I still consider the pen by function approach to vital in a virtual building workflow. In my template the elements have pens set by default and vast bulk of things are drawn with the first ten pens. This makes it pretty easy to remember.

You will also notice that pens 11 - 20 have the function of being a specific line weight at all times. So if you just want a 0.25mm pen you can just pick the appropriate one (13 usually).

Hi - I am still not sure why mapping pens to element types is useful?

Surely the graphical purpose of thick vs thin lines is almost always to pick out the dominant contours. This is inherently context specific and is more a matter of artistic judgment than function - because within the same element type, you may well need both thick and thin lines to achieve a graphically competent outcome ... or am I wrong?

For example it is infinitely more important to delineate whether a line is a cut edge vs an interface between two similar materials vs a major outline vs minor detail within a major outline ... whether or not these element types are stairs or walls or slabs ?


To achieve graphically acceptable outcomes I only use a few pen weights & gray scale & colored tones (for fills) for most documentation & presentation work. Lots of subtly different pen thicknesses on the same drawing if anything reduces the benefit if differentiating pen weights at all - most of the graphical impact from line weights comes from strong contrast - so agonizing over 0.13mm vs 0.18mm line thickness seems odd to me

Remembering the vast matrix of Graphisoft element types & selecting pen based on this represents a major productivity hit as far as I can see, with no obvious benefit (based on graphical implications) - but maybe I am missing something here?

Presumably GS thought about it all long & hard, with real world practice in mind, so I would not want to dismiss their approach if there are good reasons to change.

I am hoping/wondering whether someone out there can indeed make a strong case for sticking to the new Graphisoft defaults?

Also most of the GS library objects now seem to use the new tables by default - though not consistently unfortunately

[__archiben]

Paul wrote:
Hi - I am still not sure why mapping pens to element types is useful?

for elements to represent differently in different drawings. off the top of my head and present in the small project i currently have open:

• services - storm water, waste water, lighting, power, etc.. all have a specific pen number assigned by function so that they can be evident in all drawings but boosted/coloured/thickened where they are needed to be emphasised. or conversely, lightened/grey-scaled for overlays.

• slab edges. again, present in most drawings, but only thickened right up for emphasis on the concrete slab drawings.

• wall framing. same as services - particularly useful for grey-scale overlays or underlays...

I am hoping/wondering whether someone out there can indeed make a strong case for sticking to the new Graphisoft defaults?

no.

despite by reliance on some pen-by-function uses, i cannot for the life of me comprehend graphisoft's own offering! that it's tied into library part default pens is shocker too. during the development/alpha phase of AC10 - when some bright spark decided to introduce this - we lobbied heavily for a library utility that the average user could use to define default pens globally throughout the library. it was talked about and if i recall correctly(?) offered, but then died the death. i believe that the library dev kit has a build tool that offers this kind of function but you need to be a software developer to figure it out.

for what it's worth, i use a combination of pens-by-weight and pens-by-function. and yes, it all comes down to artistic judgement.

cheers
~/archiben

[Paul King]

Hi Ben - yes having different pen tables is useful - if only to allow on-screen vs plotted pens, and yes I suppose it is also good that it is possible to emphasize elements differently in different contexts via pen table change - though this is pretty seldom an issue in my experience - certainly if following the GS template the benefit in those cases seems insignificant compared to the overhead cost of enforcing the discipline of keeping all 255 pens mapped correctly for their separate functional category (on top of layer discipline) the rest of the time.

I would rather this sort of thing was handled in model view options

The floor slab plan example I can understand, but intrigued as to the purpose of the overlays you describe?

Cheers