Modeling
About Archicad's design tools, element connections, modeling concepts, etc.

Alternative Pen colour pallets

Anonymous
Not applicable
Does anyone know if an alternative standard pen clour pallet is available, as the one that I have in ArchiCAD 9 (straight from the box) is not very good at all. there are 256 colours available, but many are very dark, and not graded in a logical way at all.
Without adjusting each pen, is wondered if there was a means of downloading an alternative pallet, more in line with the 256 pallet from AutoCAD
8 REPLIES 8
fuzzytnth3
Booster
Here's one we use. It has a range of white through to black at various pen thicknesses
AC versions 3.41 to 25 (UKI Full 5005).
Using AC25 5005 UKI FULL
Mac OSX 10.15.7 (19G2021) Mac Pro-2013 32gbRam AMD FirePro D500 3072 MB graphics
fuzzytnth3
Booster
Here's an AutoCAD version
AC versions 3.41 to 25 (UKI Full 5005).
Using AC25 5005 UKI FULL
Mac OSX 10.15.7 (19G2021) Mac Pro-2013 32gbRam AMD FirePro D500 3072 MB graphics
TomWaltz
Participant
You can modify them any way you want using the Options > Attribute settings > Pens & Colors.... menu.
Tom Waltz
Anonymous
Not applicable
In my STS templates I have created a color palette organized with colors by tool type and gradients for pen thickness. The colors are designed to help you visualize what type of element you're looking at on screen as well as determine relative pen thickness even when viewing as hairlines.

All is mapped to black or gray pens for printed output in Plotmaker as well. Check my web site for more info.
Anonymous
Not applicable
THank you all for your time in replying to my post.
I am going to appear very thick now as I'm not sure what to do with the downloads from fuzzytnth3.
Do I just drop them into ArchCAD or do I have to drop them into a specific folder, and then how do i find the pallets in the software to use them?
TomWaltz
Participant
If you click "Options > Attribute Manager", you can import the settings into Archicad.

On the Attribute Manager menu, click on the "Pens" tab.

From there, you will have two windows to look at. The left is your current file, the right is whatever you are importing from.

On the right, click "Open" and browse to the .aat file you downloaded. You will now see all the settings in the right-hand window.

Click "Select all", and it will select all the settings on the right. Click "Overwrite" to apply all the settings to your current file.

Click the OK button. Archicad will show you a dialog that basically asks "Are you sure"? If so, click OK, and the pen settings are now imported.
Tom Waltz
Anonymous
Not applicable
Tom, good morning, and thank you.
It all seems so simple now.
As I am making the transition from AutoCAD, I am going to start with that pallet and customize as i go.
Cheers
TomWaltz
Participant
Simon wrote:
It all seems so simple now.
I've said many times over, Archicad is like that. What seems insurmountable can be trivial once you know how.... it's getting that knowledge that's the hard part!
Tom Waltz