Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
For systematic testing of your CTB files, you can download the file named
plot_screening_and_fill_patterns.dwg
from the AutoCAD 2010 Sample
Files group at
www.autodesk.com/autocad-samples
(LT users, feel free to help
yourselves to this file too — it's not included with the downloads at
www.autodesk.com/autocadlt-samples
). This drawing shows an array of color
swatches for all 255 AutoCAD colors. The layouts (such as Grayscale and Screen-
ing 25%) demonstrate how different CTB files attached to the same layout pro-
duce radically different results.
Named plot styles hold a lot of promise, but there are at least a couple of
places — dimensions and tables — where they don't work as well as traditional
color-based plotting. Dimension properties allow you to assign different colors to
dimension lines, extension lines, and text. The purpose for this is to allow differ-
ent parts of a dimension object to print with different lineweights; for example,
you can have your dimension text print with a medium lineweight, the same as
your annotation text, while keeping extension and dimension lines to a fine line-
weight. But because named plot styles are based on objects or layers, you don't
have that lineweight control over individual dimension components. The same
limitation applies to tables, where you can set your text to be one color and your
grid lines to be another.
If you
really
get carried away and decide to take advantage of the 16 million-odd colors
in AutoCAD's True Color or Color Book modes, you're not going to be controlling line-
weights with color-dependent plot styles. CTB plot styles affect the lineweights only of
objects that use the traditional 255 colors of the AutoCAD Color Index set. If you want
True Color or Color Book colors, use object lineweights or named plot styles to control
plotted lineweight.
Plotting through thick and thin
Long ago, manual drafters developed the practice of drawing lines of different thick-
nesses, or
lineweights,
in order to distinguish different kinds of objects. Manual drafters
did it with different technical ink pen nib diameters or with different hardnesses of pen-
cil lead and varying degrees of pressure on the pencil. Because a computer mouse usu-
ally doesn't come with mouse balls of different diameters, the AutoCAD developers had
