AutoCAD 2010 :: Irregularly Shaped Viewports Plotted To DWF
Jul 12, 2011
We (several people at my company including myself) are having a problem where we set up sheets for plotting in paperspace that include multiple viewports. Often, the projects require us to use irregularly shaped viewports (i.e. not square/rectangular). When we print the sheets to our plotter, to PDF, or to any other printer, the page looks fine. However, if we print them to DWF using the DWF6 ePlot.pc3, the viewports will square off, allowing items that were not supposed to be shown outside of the viewport to come through. This has caused extra information to show up across our sheets, making portions of them unreadable.
We are at a loss on how to work around this, beyond only using square/rectangular viewports. Is there a way to get the DWFs to match what we can get out of other plotters?
I've searched on "irregular" and "gradient" and a few other terms, but I did not find anything from the past to answer my question. If I am repeating an old topic, I'm sorry.
I am trying to find an easy way to create gradient fills that are not linear or circular. I want to create them in irregular shapes. So far, the only way I can think of is to draw my shape, select it, fill it, then go to Select>Modify>Contract then fill it with a slightly lighter color then repeat the process over and over and over again until I reach the center. I could certainly create an action to do the contraction of the selection so it would be a little easier, but I would still have to change the fill color each time and then fill the new shape. Is there an easier way?
I'll attach an image to show you what I am talking about. This one has banding since I do not have the patience to contract the selection one pixel at a time over and over. I am hoping that there is an automated way. Incidentally, I am using version 7. I am not completely opposed to upgrading if the feature exists in a newer version, but I am hopeful that there is some feature I am not aware of that will make it easy even in my version.
I want to insert text on an image, using a text box is the ideal way to ensure the text wraps nicely, etc. However I do not want the text to be in a standard rectangular or square text box but one of my own irregular shape.
Is there a way to find the exact area of an irregularly shaped object? If there is, does the procedure work for compound paths (objects with holes in them)?
Today's challenge was to create an artificial reflection beneath an irregularly shaped object.
In the past I've been asked to add reflections where the reflection is simply a plane that cuts horizontally across the entire object (example 1), and where the object to be reflected is skewed (example 2) - both operations are pretty straight forward...
Example 3 is the object (a duvet) to which I had to add a floor reflection. I did come up with a solution, which I am reasonably happy with, but would love to see what methods other people use! I guess my attempt is OK because the texture and shape of the duvet is fairly forgiving!
Do you have a better method for these irregular floor reflections?
Example 4 is perhaps the trickiest I can imagine as the entire object is curved and the texture uniform so a bodge job will be very obvious!
Perhaps this can't easily be done in Xara - I imagine it could be painted in a bitmap package or rendered with a 3d package... or photographed with a reflection in the first place!
I am a draftswoman have been using Autocad for doing my family tree, but i am having trouble reading the PDF's outout when printed at a high DPI. I've attached copies of the same part of the screen printed at 150 DPI, when its clear and readable, and at 2400 DPI when it goes all faded and unreadable. But there are occasions due to some graphics that its better for me to print at 2400 DPI. is there any way of improving the text printed at the higher DPI to make it clearer and readable?
We recieved some drawings from a client for updating. The Pneumatic, System Link and Heat Trace lines all show up solid in the drawings when I open them up in AutoCAD 2012. We tried opening them in AutoCAD 2004 and are experiencing the same issue. In the Linetype Manager menu, under Description, the linetypes appear correct. Under Appearance, Heat Trace and Pneumatic appear solid and System Link appears dashed (just as they do in the drawing itself).
Here's the kicker. A co-worker has AutoCAD 2004 on his laptop and everything shows up and plots out just fine.
Using 2011 with a PDF underlay. When the drawing is plotted as a PDF and the new PDF is opened, parts of the PDF portion of thew drawing are green. Changing the transparency, contrast, fade etc. of the underlay hasn't worked. I don't want to save the PDF underlay as an earlier PDF version because I'm snapping to parts of the underlay.
We have recently noticed that after printing a PDF of a drawing I plotted from AutoCAD we are coming up with differences when we double check the scale on the printed hardcopy using a carpenter ruler.
For example, there is a dimension labeled on the drawing of 200 ft. However, if I try to scale this out with a carpenter's ruler at the drawing was set to (say for instance it is 1 inch = 100 ft) I am coming up short of the 2 inches it should be (typically come up around an 1-15/16" or around 194 feet, approx 97% of the correct amount).
In the Page Setup Manager in AutoCAD, I have the following options selected (see the print screen as well):
Printer/plotter selected: DWG to PDF.pc3
Paper Size: ANSI full bleed B (11.00 x 17.00 Inches)
What to Plot: Layout
I don't have a plot scale scale other than the default 1" = 1'
No plot style selected
Then, on the print menu when I open the PDF that I have exported from AutoCAD, I have the following settings (see the print screens I have attached):
Printer: The printer I use (Konica Minolta c650 Series PCL)
And I have selected the Options "Auto Rotate and Center" and "Choose paper source by PDF page size**"
** Note, that I have tried unselecting the "Choose paper source by PDF page size" option and accordingly changed the paper size in the "Page Setup..." button at the btoom to match the document size (i.e. 11.0 x 17.0in) and it gets the difference to be closer (i.e. I now get 198 ft but some of my border gets cut off). See the print screen below for this a print screen of the print menu and sub-menu of Page Setup showing the paper size selected.
I saw that some people in other forums state that there is no real solution when trying to scale off of PDF's and that there should be a disclaimer saying as much if you are to send the file out to a customer who may rely on doing some in the field scaling from the printed copy of the PDF file. I find it hard to believe there is no solution as we have received some drawings from others whom the scaling works just fine.
I have some aligned dimensions in model space - they look ok, text is oriented according to WCS. Also I have some viewports with UCS (I used commands UCS, PLAN) where dimensions look wrong, text is not oriented correctly. Is it possible to "update" dimension in viewport to orient text as in model space?
Programmatically created dims in viewports oriented as in model space, not considering current UCS.
I have two viewports in a drawing file. One is for existing and new conditions and one is for existing and demolition conditions. So, I want one viewport to freeze some layers and the other viewport to freeze other layers. After picking and freezing certain layers in each viewport, I created New Layer States - One called New Floor Plan and the other called Demo Floor Plan.
When I click inside one of the viewports and select the appropriate layer state it changes both viewports to the same layer state. That is not what I want. Is it possible to have one layer state in one viewport and another layer state in another viewport?
I am trying to organize my drawing in model into different viewports for printing purposes. However, in Layout # 1, once I delete an item it also deletes the item in model space. In Layout # 2, can't edit, select, highlight or anything ( I am in Layer 0). How can I fix that ? Basically, I want to create several layouts, each layout will contain a certain section of my drawing in model space then. I am not "layout savvy", trying to get hang of it.
ACAD MEP 2012..Yes all the typical settings are correct.I have a 2-d drawing with 4 viewports, 2 of which will not print Black & White? Thought it might have to do with visual styles but changing them had no effects.
How can I tell when a viewport (any viewport) in paper space is currently active.
This is actually related to a .NET programming error, whereby even when the drawing is in Paper space, if a viewport is active, I am unable to programmatically access the Layout. I need to be able to, at a minimum, detect this condition, then switch back to full paper space (i.e. de-activate the viewport) if possible.
He's got a series of roadway plans where the North arrow shows up fine on some sheets, but the fill (solid hatch) in the arrows doesn't display on others. The arrows are blocks, all the elements in the block are on layer "0" (zero).and the blocks reside in model space.
Just for grins. I had him expand a viewport (where the arrow looks fine) to capture a problematic arrow and... it looks fine. So, it's not an arrow/block/layer issue. It's a viewport issue.
I am working on a sheet which curently has the MAXACTVP setting set at 30 which is adequate for the number of VP's currently on the sheet but the contens are still not visible unless i move them.
I want to create a hot key that will lock viewports on/off. The command is MVIEW / L / ON OR OFF. What I would like to do is have VPL lock viewports and VPLL unlock viewports. How can I do this?
I am having a problem plotting any viewports that are not set to 2D wireframe. All viewports set to 2D wireframe plot correctly but anything set to hidden of conceptual plots as a black square.
Let's say you create a floor plan, and you use the Layer State manager to separate the framing plan, finish plan, reflected ceiling plan, etc. Now, when you go to create a sheet, you xref this plan into model space with all of the layers thawed/on, go to your titleblock in paper space and make a viewport.
Currently, if I click into a viewport and use the Layer State manager to show just the information of the RCP, it will freeze all of the layers I don't need, but it will freeze those layers in model space, instead of just within the viewport. It gets very time consuming doing it the way I always understood to do it; making sure all layers are thawed/on in model space, and then going into each viewport and manually VP-freezing each layer I don't need.
So can Layer States be set up to work within viewports, to only have those layers VP-frozen?
In some drawings the viewports automatically display viewport objects when I copy them and some they do not. There must be a systems variable and I searched through the systems variable tool in the Express tools and couldn't find it. How to get consistent results when copying viewports.
I have a sheet set with several sheets, each sheet with a viewport that ultimately xrefs to the same base file. In that base file, I have changed some layer properties (color), but I can't get those properties to show up in the viewports on each sheet unless I go into the layer properties of each viewport on each sheet and change them individually. On other layers, I have set them to be no plot layers in the base file, but they still plot on the sheets. I have tried just simply freezing them as well, but they still show up in the viewports. I have tried viewport overrides, but maybe don't do it properly? How can I get these properties to translate over to the viewports on each sheet without going through each sheet one by one?
I have a drawing file with lots of layouts, some of which have multiple viewports. I want to create a new layer and use it in just a few viewports. Is there a way to set the default vpfreeze setting to frozen for new layers? That way I can just thaw it in a few viewports instead of trying to vpfreeze it in a lot.
I have an existing drawing with numerous viewports. I would like to know if there is a way to link those existing viewports to the set as "sheet views" without having to delete them and re-create them using the normal sheet set process.
I've noticed that each viewport has a variable in its properties display called "link to sheet view" with a yes or no entry, but it doesn't seem changable.
Is this possible, or must I re-create them from scratch?
After drawing in model space(1:1 Scale) I then dimension as needed using Annotative Dimensions, Multileaders and MText using the same 1:1 scale. But when I create the variuos viewports on my layout pages the dimensions aren't scaling to the viewport scale.
This is where it may be partly my fault; When I first started using annotative dimensions etc. a box would pop up asking what scale to use. Because I am dimensioning in model space, rather than always seeing this text box I selected "Do not ask again" check box to always use 1:1 scaling.
These are some of the other settings in place;
ANNOAUTOSCALE = 4 Annotation Visibility = ON Automatically Add Scales = ON
