Colours That Work

Hi,

Strange one this, but does anyone have any thoughts on what colours work well together when designing / drawing? Like blue and grey...

Does anyone have any ideas on this?

I would love to hear anyones ideas on this subject because I am doing some cross sections of rail way drawings and am really looking for some ideas if thats okay!!

Kind regards and thanks in advance!

Daz.

Are you talking about colors as they relate to pen weights or colors as in actual colors? If it is the latter then I guess it depends on what your trying to convey. In cases I have been involved with where aerial imagery is involved bright or black colors work best. This is really a subjective subject as some may think my color selections work where others do not. If this is about pen weights then the (colors of course) are dependent on how your CTB file is setup or in some cases STB file.

Think of it as in what you want to stand out (ie foreground) and what you want to be background. If your using actual colors then grays would of course be great for background where red or blue would stand out. Yellow is not a good one if your plotting on white paper (which most do).

Okay,

What I was really trying to find out is what other people tend to do.

I have been using AutoCAD for a while now, and I really dont have a set standard of colours that I constantly use!!

What I would ideally like to know is what people using CAD tend to find works best if you know what I mean?

Currently, I am doing to some cross sections of Rail Track, four of them, with ballast underneath them and that.

I pretty much know my way around CAD, my downfall is my presentation!!

HELP PLEASE!!

when you plot do you use a ctb or stb? do you plot to color or to black and white?

Hi,

 

Strange one this, but does anyone have any thoughts on what colours work well together when designing / drawing? Like blue and grey...

 

Does anyone have any ideas on this?

 

I would love to hear anyones ideas on this subject because I am doing some cross sections of rail way drawings and am really looking for some ideas if thats okay!!

 

Kind regards and thanks in advance!

 

Daz.

I first identify colors that I can see well on a black background and colors I don't mind seeing a lot of.

Linewidths adjusted with STB plot style names, and I plot a majority of my plots in color.

I tend to use 8 for centerlines, hidden lines, phantom lines, patterns, etc.

7 is used for most of the wider lines along with 7 for text.

6 is used for indicating new work as it stands out well.

1 is for electrical work and for piping systems with heated liquid.

4 is used for piping systems with cool liquids.

2 and 5 is rarely used as I have a hard time reading those on screen.

3 is used for narrower lines than 6 or 7.

I will use colors similar to those above if I have a lot of layers I want to keep sorted out on screen. IE:6 is close to 200 - 214, etc.

STB is used here so I tend to think of lineweights per object or system rather than color, although as you see from above, I still use color for some linewidth indication, a hold over from the CTB days no doubt.

There is more to it but generally that is what I have evolved to for my unique situation.

Hi,

Thanks for your feed back here, it really is helpful.

I do use a CTB file.

I have been so hit and miss really, as I never really know what seems to work best.

Just to have some guidance here really helps me out.

This is a very old (AutoCad 12) and very basic pen weight setup but was very affective at giving my drawings a depth of field (if you will) with background and foreground conveyance for civil design and survey drawings. Set up your CTB file as shown in the image and use heavy weights for things that need to really be noticed and medium weights for less important and then light weights to screened/shaded colors (i.e. 8, 9 & 250-255 in the image) for things that need to be seen for reference. I hope this helps.

You might want to consider going to the style based files as this gives you a greater flexibility with your weights and shaded colors.

Thats great and thank you.

We constantly use CTB files, where are the STB's?

Or am I being stupid?

Thats great and thank you.

 

We constantly use CTB files, where are the STB's?

Or am I being stupid?

You can only use CTB or STB on a file. Going back and forth is possible but not recommended, best to go with one or the other and stay there. (convertctb, convertpstyle are two commands to read up on)

Changing over to STB cannot be taken lightly or done unilaterally in an office. Everyone would have to be brought on board with the change. And if you collaborate outside your firm you would have to get those folks to agree to change and use common STB names.

The STB choices won't show when you are in a file set to use CTB and of course the other way around as well. To see the ones already available to you just go to your style manager (File, Plot Style Manager) then dbl click on a file ending in STB to open one up and see the difference in style names.

Lots to explore and learn when going to STB. I am a convert myself and enjoy using them.

Thanks for your help here.

Regards,

Daz

Hi,

 

Strange one this, but does anyone have any thoughts on what colours work well together when designing / drawing? Like blue and grey...

 

Does anyone have any ideas on this?

 

I would love to hear anyones ideas on this subject because I am doing some cross sections of rail way drawings and am really looking for some ideas if thats okay!!

 

Kind regards and thanks in advance!

 

Daz.

Are you uing a black backround? I use colors that "bleed" on my black screen as heavy lines i.e - yellow, green, blue. Medium lines , cyan, magenta. Sharp lines are white, #9 red. etc. Basically I set my colors as I see them in terms of LW as to how sharp or fuzzy they are against a black screen.