Tips for accomodating colorblindness?

[BlackBox]

Cool. Thanks.

Sadly enough, I have no template here yet. Last week was really the first time I started a drawing from scratch and I just went on autopilot. Everything else I've been modifying drawings that originated outside of our company.
I should get around to it... eventually.

(I've been trying to keep my head down about CAD issues, I do not want to be made responsible for it here. Though the person currently 'in charge' of the archives is pretty overworked with other things, so I help out when I can... but, I don't want to be TOO helpful, ya know.)

I was going to ask if you needed a contingency for this, but felt it prudent to stay the small addition of complexity, until you mentioned needing a way to quickly bring in said 'plot' state.

Setup your colorblind-friendly Layer State in any drawing, and export to .LAS, saved to your personal network space, or local (USB?) drive, and simply incorporate a LayerState-Import call... See revised code above... This will bring in the desired Layer State if it does not already exist, and then perform the above mentioned actions.

[Edit] - Code assumes that 'plot' Layer State is the same name as <YourFileName>.las file (without the .LAS file extension, of course).

Cheers

[jaberwok]

Melanie -
look here.
If I'm right, your man should see both colour strips as being the same (I think).

[still can't upload pictures]

[dkoch]

I guess you guys hit the high points, I'm not certain exactly what his weak points are yet. So, I'll have to speak with my boss or the owner about it if I want to get specific. My boss seemed to indicate yellow, cyan and green were a problem. Adding some lineweights should help on iffy colors, but, I'd rather just simplify my life and avoid their usage.

The owner will view either the pdf or a printout of the pdf. All of the drawings I am asked for are in color, so I'd like to keep it that way for the remaining users (vps, department heads, etc).
BlackBox, appreciate the offer, but, I work for a financial services company, my owner has never used anything remotely like cad. I had to demand a full version when I got here, as the other users in my department are all on LT. But, you know, a diva like me, I'm not going without my automation.

For what it is worth, AutoCAD yellow (2), cyan (4) and green (3) are relatively hard to see on a white background, colorblind or not. (They are great on a black background, but I assume your PDFs are plotted with a white background.)

[Wanderer]

For what it is worth, AutoCAD yellow (2), cyan (4) and green (3) are relatively hard to see on a white background, colorblind or not. (They are great on a black background, but I assume your PDFs are plotted with a white background.)

I agree on the yellow, but, cyan and green? Yes, pdfs, so, I can grant you that. But, as I said, those are always the less important features anyway.
I'll keep working on it.

Thanks for the link, John. I'll try reading it once my coworkers quiet down a little (ugh).

[dkoch]

I agree on the yellow, but, cyan and green? Yes, pdfs, so, I can grant you that. But, as I said, those are always the less important features anyway.
I'll keep working on it.

Thanks for the link, John. I'll try reading it once my coworkers quiet down a little (ugh).

I will concede that cyan and green are not as hard to see as yellow, and that green is usually not too bad. Cyan falls in between those two, for me. Fortunately, most of the final output I have had to create is black or screened black on white.

[Wanderer]

I will concede that cyan and green are not as hard to see as yellow, and that green is usually not too bad. Cyan falls in between those two, for me. Fortunately, most of the final output I have had to create is black or screened black on white.

When I brought this up with my dear hubby (don't worry, he never comes in this part of the forums anymore) he dared to tell me that no one uses color in their output, only b/w. I told him to stop arguing with my 15 years of experience in office environments that do so use color and keep his eyes on the road.
I may have also intimated that the stones he was chiseling his prints into weren't capable of colored output back in his day.

[cadtag]

When I brought this up with my dear hubby (don't worry, he never comes in this part of the forums anymore) he dared to tell me that no one uses color in their output, only b/w. I told him to stop arguing with my 15 years of experience in office environments that do so use color and keep his eyes on the road.
I may have also intimated that the stones he was chiseling his prints into weren't capable of colored output back in his day.

that's pretty cold.....

for a young whippersnapper

[dkoch]

When I brought this up with my dear hubby (don't worry, he never comes in this part of the forums anymore) he dared to tell me that no one uses color in their output, only b/w. I told him to stop arguing with my 15 years of experience in office environments that do so use color and keep his eyes on the road.
I may have also intimated that the stones he was chiseling his prints into weren't capable of colored output back in his day.

We do lots of things in color, but that is more on the presentation/rendering/marketing end of things. Most of my career has been spent on the contract document/construction administration part. Color prints have not gotten inexpensive enough to be part of a standard print order, although with more projects being issued for bid via PDF rather than paper, the ability to use color could eventually change (as soon as they build a 48x36 monitor rugged enough for construction sites).

[Wanderer]

We do lots of things in color, but that is more on the presentation/rendering/marketing end of things. Most of my career has been spent on the contract document/construction administration part. Color prints have not gotten inexpensive enough to be part of a standard print order, although with more projects being issued for bid via PDF rather than paper, the ability to use color could eventually change (as soon as they build a 48x36 monitor rugged enough for construction sites).

Yeah, I acknowledge my side of the industry is a bit different, but, it seems to be consistent nonetheless. We don't do much printing post-occupancy, and the sheets are always for more of a quick reference or markup than actually constructing things at the time (because they've already been built long in the past).
Just as when I was at the hospital, we had large format viewing stations and color plotters around the campus. The screens were used most often, but, the plotting was so small scale and rare, we went ahead and did color anyway, as the mechanics and engineers were used to the colors on the screen. (not to mention the average age of a facilities worker is on the higher side and failing eyesight was a common complaint regarding lineweight differences on the b/w prints we did occasionally have to use.)

[blair.nixon677703]

I have been using AutoCAD for many years and I am color blind. My problems lie in the red/green/brown areas, blue/violet areas and grey/pink areas.
There are many different types and degrees of color blindness so my suggestion is to ask your boss what colors he has issues with and devise a solution from there. You may not be able to come up with a standard based on "typical" color blindness.
For example, I have problems with cyan showing up as white on a black background, yellow and green looking identical to me on the screen. If I used a white background, I would not see cyan at all.
It really does require a special solution for his case but if there are only a couple problem colors, perhaps you could simply use a different color and then no major changes are required? Or you may be able to address this with a custom CTB file when you print the plan?
Sorry, I' not giving much of a solution but it really is specific to his eyes and what colors he sees incorrectly.