Set line thickness separately, not via pen settings.

[EDWLAM]

Currently, you can only set line weights via a general pen setting based on a color grid (where a specific color corresponds to a specific line weight). It would be preferable to set line weights individually for each element using a thickness parameter. This would also free up a larger color palette for color-based drafting.

[Barry Kelly]

A technical correction here.

Pen thickness (weight) is not associated to the pen colour.

Both pen thickness and pen colour are associated to a pen attribute number - pens 1 to 255.

You can have multiple pen sets, and each can have their own pen thickness and colour associated to any pen.

So you could have pen set one, where the pen colour is black and the pen thickness is 0.1mm.

Then in pen set two, you could still have pen one as black, but now with a thickness of 0.5mm.

Simply swapping the pen set will affectively change the thickness of the pen.

Setting the line thickness per element would mean that you could not swap the pen set to change the thickness of the pen as we can do now.

Save a 1:100 scale view using a pen set that has pen 1 set to 0.1mm.

Save the same view at 1:20 scale and you can now also set a different pen set where pen 1 is 0.5mm so it appears thicker at a larger scale.

If you had set the pen thickness in the element, you could not have any variation at different scales (unless you start playing around with graphic overrides maybe?).

But I can also see your point.

You may want a black line to be 0.1mm thick, and in the same plan at the same scale you want another black pen to be 0.5mm thick.

You can not just change the thickness of the line, you must assign a different pen.

Meaning you must have 2 black pens in your pen set, one at 0.1mm and the other at 0.5mm.

Depending on how you want to set up your pens you could have pens 1-20 all different colours but all 0.1mm thick.

Then pens 21 -40 the same colours but 0.2mm thick.

Pens 41-60 the same colour but 0.3mm thick.

Keep going but leave a few pens at the end for custom settings to suit particular jobs.

So in a single pen set, you could have 20 colours to choose from (that should be plenty) with around 10 different thicknesses for each colour.

Now enhance it further with as many different pen sets as you want that you can switch to as the need arises.

Barry.

[arch_08]

I love how Archicad handles pen sets.

Sure, switching from AutoCAD took some getting used to, but now I’d never go back!

[GG_rakurs]

It could be solved "easily" by adding an ability to override pen color and thickness within every single element. Also, a graphic override could also "override that override," force the use of the selected pen set's settings.

Basically, if you draw a line with pen 1 and have pen set A define it as black and 0,1mm, but within that line's settings set override for it to be red and 1mm thick, it would come out red and thick whichever pen set you select. And then, within graphic overrides, you could revert to default pen settings if that was necessary for a layout or two. This way, you could have the best of both worlds.