Wishes
Post your wishes about Graphisoft products: Archicad, BIMx, BIMcloud, and DDScad.

Pen 91 w/ Black Background

Anonymous
Not applicable
I would like to see pen 91(white pen) work properly when using a black background. Currently this does not work.

When working in a white background, with a black line to represent a wall edge, I can use pen 91 to whiteout a line(of any color). When viewed and printed the non-pen-91 line is whited-out.

When using a black background, pen 91 won't work since AC shows it was white, and since black pens are converted in AC to white, you can't tell what is whited-out and what isn't.

Also, using a black pen to white-out using a black background doesn't work either.

Thanks,

Grant
5 REPLIES 5
Geoff Briggs
Mentor
In order to "white-out" a line don't you need to match the line weight as well? I always assumed this so I set up a row of white pens with weights that match my standard progression solely for this purpose. I know using white out exposes weaknesses either in my method or AC's clean-up but that's life. Happily I'm finding AC's clean-up approaching an acceptable point, so for most drawings I've adapted the "reverse drafting" technique of leaving S/Es linked and patching where necessary.

I use an off-white, light gray back ground. That way all lines show including white.

That said I generally agree with your wish. Pure white to pure black and visa versa, as long as the Automatic Pen Color Visibility Adjustment preference is selected. It would also be nice for invisible lines to somehow be optionally or temporarily displayed.
Regards,
Geoff Briggs
I & I Design, Seattle, USA
AC7-27, M1 Mac, OS 14.x
Anonymous
Not applicable
Just for some added clarifications, while AC does join walls properly, that does not always translate into having the core composites join properly, as you can see in the attached image.

Here is where the problem is most evidant. First, the drawing without any adjustment just isn't technically correct. The walls have to join properly, but so do the various composite layers, especially the core. In the image provided, the walls do join properly, but not the core composite.

Also, when creating a dwg file for civil/structural, etc, you then have to massage the information in the DWG file so that it appears correctly. In this case, the civil turns off all composites except the core as he/she doesn't care about stone, stucco, siding, etc. As such, the walls do not close properly unless I go into the file and spend hours checking each and every wall. Waste of time.

I can use the proper pen color to make the wall appear as if it is joined in AC, however, I use a black pen for core composite, which when using a black background gets automatically changed to white. And therefore, the white-out pen won't work properly as it appears white and when viewing the plan you can't tell a wall line from a white-out line when the white-out line is covering up part of a wall.

Grant
__archiben
Booster
okay!

now i see what you're up to . . .

so to add to (and possibly supersede) this wish . . .

1. composite skins to intelligently mitre to each other not the mitre line of the wall.
2. a composite intersection priority for junction end lines (where skins don't match).

. . . let's get to the source of the problem not a workaround for the workaround! (sure these have been wishes many a time before)

~/archiben
b e n f r o s t
b f [a t ] p l a n b a r c h i t e c t u r e [d o t] n z
archicad | sketchup! | coffeecup
Anonymous
Not applicable
How did this turn from a discussion of non-printing pens into a discussion of composite wall intersections? I must be missing something.

Improvements to the composites are essential. They have already improved substantially over the years but still have a ways to go. Proper clean-up of individual skins in plan is one needed improvement. Others are scale sensitivity and better clean-up in section. It seems that this should be in its own topic rather than under "Pen 91 w/Black Background."

Regarding the white pen issue. I don't understand the reason to use white-out lines. I usually use empty fills with pen 91 as the background color. With a black background (which I rarely use) this looks fine if the Preference is set to use the drawing background as the fill background (rather than the element's setting).

I am curious, what do you use the white-out lines for?
__archiben
Booster
Matthew wrote:
I am curious, what do you use the white-out lines for?
matthew

original discussion was here:
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=1879

turning it into a composite wall wish was prompted by the specific issue rather then general use of whiting out. got a bit carried away, sorry!

~/archiben
b e n f r o s t
b f [a t ] p l a n b a r c h i t e c t u r e [d o t] n z
archicad | sketchup! | coffeecup