Screen Color

[a1harps]

Just curious,
Is there a popular school of thought as to which screen background to use.
Black screen with white lines or white screen with black lines? Is there a choice thats been proven to be easier on the eyes? I have allways prefered whitescreen with black lines because my drawings look like the
pencil and paper ones I started out on. Frank

[f700es]

I prefer the black screen with white lines. It just seems easier on my eyes. A few of our engineers use a gray screen and that seeems almost worse than a white screen ;)

[Mr T]

My classroom 20 machines are 17inch Black with white outlines, blue dims pink text, red centre lines, green hidden detail.

My machine with the digital projector is high contrast white screen black lines. And heavy lineweight.

Nick

[David Bethel]

Black background with absolutely NO florescent lights allowed. -David

[a1harps]

David,
Is this a personal pref. or is there some science behind it?(not floresent
lighting, i know its hard on the vision). Frank

[gcp310]

Ditto, black screen,even on the paperspace/layouts.

whites a bit harsh on the eyes.

G

[David Bethel]

Some interesting reading although I don't agree with everything:

http://www.tifaq.com/articles/visual_comfort-jan99-jeffrey_anshel.html

http://www.office-ergo.com/setting.htm

-David

[a1harps]

Thanks David,
Here is a snipet from the vision comfort web site: • Black characters on a white background is probably the best combination. Other combinations can be comfortable as long as the contrast between the characters and the background is high. It’s best to avoid dark backgrounds.
LOL now I am really confused
Frank

[a1harps]

And one last copy and paste, this one from the Office Ergo web site:

SCREEN COLORS
Screen colors: dark letters on a light background.

With the monitor off, look at your reflection in the screen. Now turn the monitor on and select a Windows-type background, (black letters on a white background). Notice that you cannot see your reflection as well.
Contrast is simply the difference in brightness between two images. With a white background, we reduce the difference in contrast between the screen and what is reflected off of it.
Negative screen contrast (black letters/white background) can reduce reflected images, as we saw with the demonstration. A white background also reduces the luminance (brightness) difference between the screen and the surrounding background of a normally lighted office. That makes it easier on your eyes.
Most early monitor screens had a black background with white, green or amber characters. Although white backgrounds were possible, the low quality of the monitors meant that the screen would flicker noticeably. Although newer technology has reduced the necessity, there are still many software programs with dark backgrounds.
Performance
Bauer and Cavonius (1980) found a lower error rate, with dark letters on a white background. Snyder and his colleagues (1990) also compared black and white backgrounds. Eight out of ten subjects increased their performance by using dark letters on a light background. The improvements ranged from a low of 2.0% to a high of 31.6%. The tasks were visual search and proofreading.
Well, I was considering switching to a black background after so many
Cad Tutor "heavyweights" were set up like that but it seems like these
work station "experts" are saying white backgrounds are better. :o

Thankyou David Bethel for the scientific legwork.
Frank

[f700es]

Well no matter what those "experts" say I know how my eyes feel when I am looking at a white background and how they feel when I have a black one ;)

[CadSince81]

I started out on Intergraph equipment way back when you had no choice. Old habits never die, so I use white and bright colored geometry on a black backgound. I've worked at a lot of places and I've never seen anyone using a white background in CAD.

[hyposmurf]

Im used to the blackground in model space and white for paper.Spend most of my time in model space so its easier on my eyes,with pspace white so theyre quickly differentiated.Ive considered changing the colours,but makes it a lot easier if I ever join a new company who are tight on customisations.I spend alot of time looking at a montior screen,with white backgrounds so having modle space black helps a little.Takes me a little longer to drop off asleep if Ive been staring at my screen with white backgrounds for too long.Think it has something to do with ineterfering with your bodyclock/daylighting