WYSIWYG

[Anonymous]

maybe it us, and maybe this is not the place to question this...but we find, we meaning me...short on meds today....that AC is not very WYSIWYG friendly...OR is there setting we are missing....

[Link]

To preview what the output will look like at full size, simply click on the Zoom Scale button to get it to 100%. Then you can pan around and see how things are going to look when printed/plotted - within reason (varies slightly with screen resolution), but is a pretty good representation.

Or are you saying it is still inaccurate?

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

Link,

thanx for that tip...that is going to be helpful....this is the type of information I am looking for

[Anonymous]

I think this is an interesting topic. I always try to create my images in AC to look exactly like they look in PM with matching pen colours, layers, resulting line weights, etc in AC and PM.

Some architects use very attractive colours in AC and then have different colours set for the pens in PM (usually black). Is there a point to changing colours in PM? I prefer and like the term "what you see is what you get".

However I would be interested to hear from those who prefer to change colours in PM to hear of the advantages of that approach and disadvantages.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Graeme wrote:
However I would be interested to hear from those who prefer to change colours in PM to hear of the advantages of that approach and disadvantages.

Hi Graeme,

I resisted using separate PM pen tables until the past year just to keep life simple. Turns out separate pen tables in PM isn't that more complex than 'uniform pens and colors' and gives a lot of flexibility, as guys on the list who convinced me to change will explain in more detail.

Some of the uses of separate pens involve limitations in ArchiCAD itself.

For example, we do not have a 'nonprinting' but visible pen in AC to display things like page layout guides in our model views. So, we can either place those guides on a hidden layer and turn that layer on while working (every time we switch views), or we can use a pen that is visible in AC, but which is mapped to white in PM.

We do not have a way of displaying just the outside of a structural wall as a dashed line - omitting any other lines in a composite. We fake the dashing by an overlaid white diagonal fill with a fat white pen. But, by assigning pens appropriately, the required drawing can have all other skin lines printed white (turned off) in PM. (I use this technique to create a "ghost" plan of "walls below" that underlays my framing plans in PM -- the two drawings are snapped on top of one another.)

Suppose you're doing a renovation that involves an as-built plan, a demolition plan, a new construction plan and a final plan. In the demo and new plans we want the walls to be demolished to be bolder or maybe in a deeper fill. We want the as-built (original) and final plans to look 'normal'. Different pens in PM allow that with the same live model data.

I'm new to this approach ... would like to hear what others are doing...?

Karl

[Anonymous]

Karl, thanks for your reply and you have certainly made me rethink the use of different colours in PM.

In your renovation example I have always used different layers to achieve the result of existing, demolition and proposed work. This seems to work ok but can be time consuming getting all the layers right. I can see that the different pen approach may actually save time when preparing this type of work.

Also permanent ghosting of stories that do not print in PM would also be useful.

Cheers,

[Link]

Well as you may know I have been a big advocate for pen mapping in PlotMaker for quite a few years now and still believe it is one of PlotMaker's most powerful features.

Below (on the left) is a typical pen & color table for one of my ArchiCAD templates. I like to keep it simple (stupid) and most people like to wotk that way too! It is based on using only the first ten pens for all plotted/printed linework. So only the first ten pens are used for all tools, and they are based on an increasing pen thickness, (eg. 0.0, 0.05, 0.13, 0.25, 0.35, 0.5, etc). Using that method it is very easy to tell predict how thick a color will plot no matter what it is used for.

Then in PlotMaker I map these first ten pens to black (on the right) and always print/plot in color. If I do want something to plot in color, I simply use one of the other pens in the palette to model/draft it with and since those pens are not being mapped to black, it will print out that color. So we still have full color control!

And there are special cases too, which is why pens 11-20 (and the last pens) are left blank. Let's say you want your framing elements dark on one plan but light in another - put them on a dedicated pen number (say 11) and then you can make that pen's thickness differently in each specific drawing you place in PM. Or you want a certain kind of composite wall to be bright red in one kind of plan, but normal black in all the others. Build the composite with a dedicated foreground & background colors that are mapped to red in that particular plan in PlotMaker only. A good example of that may be for fire rated walls. Another example that I use a lot is showing ghosted plans. I place a framing plan over a (ghosted) plan of the story below and map the first ten pens of the ghosted plan to black, but also make them have a very small thickness, so the ghost appears very light, when plotted.

Personally I think a lot of people overcomplicate their pen settings. An example would be using the same color (with different pen thicknesses) for certain elements, ie. electrical, bathroom fixtures, etc. But IMHO this is the job of layers, not pens!

Other people are bringing over the old methodologies from AutoCAD which are simply not needed in ArchiCAD. To quote 'The ArchiCAD Implementation Guide':

In practice, there are of course standards in all [ArchiCAD] offices, but not the formal tome that AutoCAD et al. demand. ArchiCAD provides the designer great freedom in its use; whilst at the same time provides a substantial structural framework within which to work, removing the need for a great deal of the content of most CAD standards manuals.

So that's my thoughts on the matter. I am not in any way saying other people's methods are any worse, but the most important thing is finding something that works for you. I just like to keep it as simple, easy to use, and as powerful as it can be.

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

Hi Link,

Thanks for the very detailed reply. Your color palette is very interesting and well set out.

A couple of questions. How do the different colours look when drawing with them? Some colours are very hard to see on the screen. I suppose it depends upon your background colour but that also makes some colours difficult to see and they can disappear. I notice you don't have many light colours in your main drawing colours.

Also how small can a printer print lines? Some of your line settings are small and I don't think my printer prints lines that thin (HPdesignjet 500)

Cheers,

[TomWaltz]

I did something similar for my office. They run from left to right:
.13 gray, .18 gray, 0.18 , 0.25 , 0.35 , 0.50 , 0.70, 1.00

We 5 different combinations in Plotmaker, to show these elements in different colors as needed.

We use a medium gray background.

The top "group" is architectural:
1 - 8 New
21-28 Existing
41-48 Demo

The middle group is MPE/Structural
81 - 88 New
101- 108 Existing
121- 148 Demo

The "blue row" is annotation
161 - 168

The "aqua" row is non-plotting. We have line weights assigned to them so we can do "dash-masks," line hatches on top of modeled elements to make them look dashed. (thanks to Mr Lohden for that idea!)
241-248

The two on the far right were intended for electronic markup, but we never implemented it since it's really not what we wanted. Unless Markup is possible in Plotmaker, our project managers are really not going to use it.

[Link]

How do the different colours look when drawing with them? Some colours are very hard to see on the screen. I suppose it depends upon your background colour but that also makes some colours difficult to see and they can disappear. I notice you don't have many light colours in your main drawing colours

Please keep in mind that mainly it's just the first ten pens that are used. You can make them whatever color you like. The rest of the pens are only if you want them to publish in color.

Also how small can a printer print lines? Some of your line settings are small and I don't think my printer prints lines that thin (HPdesignjet 500)

IME setting a pen to zero will plot at the smallest your plotter can go. Using a DesignJet 500 you should see a difference between 0.0, 0.05, 0.13, 0.25, 0.35, 0.5 etc. (All those old pen weights!). But the best way is to run a few tests and see what you think.

A good test is with composites. You can get a pretty good idea on screen of how they will print out by settting your line weight to 'True Weight' in Display Options and your zoom scale to 100%.

I will be in your area around February/March - maybe I can drop by and say gidday?

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info Tom and Link. Tom you have a nice clear separation for different types of info to show on the drawings and a easy to use simplified colour setup.

Link I hope to be around in Feb/March if you want to drop in.

Cheers,