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How To Make Floor Plans Ghosted


Bill Tillman

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I'm working with floor plans for large commercial projects which are loaded with blocks, different line weights, etc... Typically, I'd like the floor plan to show up with just one line thickness, all ghosted because I don't want the focus to be on the floor plan other than just to orient the viewers with the location. Then I can draw the objects I want on the floor plan which will pop off the page in a darker shade and line weight.

 

I've been trying to select all the hatches of one kind, edit blocks so the lines are all the same weight and color. But this is kind of overwhelming because there are so many objects that need editing in order to get the results I want. The only other option i can think of is to just redraw the whole thing but I've got to believe there is a better method for achieving this.

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We just move everything to one layer and assign a dark gray color to it. If this works for editing the drawing but not for plotting we edit the plot style table and change the Screening option for the particular layer to 50%, for starters, then adjust accordingly.

 

Note too that if one locks a layer the color intensity of that layer is diminished (i.e. - less visually obtrusive).

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Thanks ReMark. I've been trying different methods. One problem is when I select the entire floor plan and set the color of all lines to 9, it doesn't get all the blocks contained therein. So I use the Explode command several times and then repeat the process of grabbing the entire floor plan and changing everything to 9. Problem is some of the lines don't change. What I'm finding is that even though the line properties say it's set to 9, it may still be red, or green. So once I get the entire thing exploded and it appears there are no more blocks in the way, I set everything to color 9. But some of the lines are still not changed. What I find is that if I select the entire floor plan the Color 9 will appear in the ribbon. If I select only a portion of the lines then the properties for color is blank and I can then change the selection to 9. But for some reason there is this problem of the app not able to handle all the lines in the floor plan at one time.

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I have a layer or two set up for that. The layer colors are a light gray true color. Even though I print everything in monochrome.ctb, the true color gray prints (to pdf) significantly lighter in their actual color, since ctb's don't process them at all. My final product is pdf documents that will be reviewed on the computer. Layer transparency and xref transparency lines still look dark in a pdf on screen unless one zooms WAY in.

 

Bill, you apparently have a bunch of line work in that drawing with the individual color object property set to specific colors rather than By Layer, and then others that are set to By Layer. Objects not set to By Layer won't change properties just by moving to a different layer.

 

So I can use my Gray Layer, the stuff I want to lighten up gets the color set to By Layer when I get it all moved over there.

 

My drawings also make use of the architectural floor plans as a pdf xref'ed in with the xref transparency set to 50%.

 

The stuff I use the true color on is usually bits of the arch drawings that I have traced. My stuff is most of the time reviewed by interior designers. These little nutmegs like to see ALL the bricks, and ALL the wood grain, so I make the hatches the true color gray and then the 1/4" = 1'-0" scale brick hatch doesn't make the pdf look like it's wearing a seersucker suit. I can put text right over it without having to use the background fill on the text as well.

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Sounds like bringing that in as an xref might be a good place to start, but not being there I don't know for sure.

 

You can use SETBYLAYER to get everything to by layer, may help a bunch. If you don't have SETBYLAYER then use CHANGE, ALL, P, C, BYLAYER, LT, BYLAYER. Watch the command line for the options.

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I have to do this all the time with my drawings. Start by selecting an object that I don't want in the drawing then isolating the layer it is on and deleting all those objects. I do this one layer at a time. The objects I do want I select then place it on layer 0 for the time being. It's tedious and time consuming but makes for a cleaner easier to see drawing. Sometimes I get a drawing that has the layouts that show just the floorplan with out all the notes and other stuff that you normally see in the model space so I will go there and select all the objects and place them on a layer that I created, then I lock that layer go back to model space select everything else and delete and purge. Delete all the hatches as well they serve no purpose for your drawings, all your trying to show is the relationship of your objects to the rest of the building. Of course you will need to save as before you start trimming your drawing and keep the original. After you trim your drawing down start a new drawing and xref your new floor plan in. That way if you need to make any changes to the floor plan you will have a separate drawing to work from.

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Thanks all. The solution I found was to bring up the layer manager window, highlight all layers and set the color to "9" or "253". Then use the SETBYLAYER command to make all object use the color of the layer. A few manual tweaks got the desired results so the objects I want to focus on stand out from all the architectural lines text that is present in the plan.

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