Color Management in Revit

[DanielleAnderson]

Since I've been at this new job, I've noticed that I seem to do a lot of "shaded with edges" massing studies and zero rendering. The problem that I am having, and it has been around as long as I've been using revit, is that colors are very unpredictable. I can choose a very specific pantone color for a mass and when I look at it on screen, and printed, it is a totally different shade or, in some cases, a completely different hue. Does anybody have any secrets to make this less painful (other than Jeffrey McGrew's idea of painting a hidden line view)?
Any help would be appreciated by me, my colleagues, and the forests that I am destroying by all the test prints I am having to make.
Thanks,
Danielle

[captainbunsaver]

I have noticed this with any application. The onscreen color does not match what the printer outputs, and will be different from printer to plotter/printer!.
I have seen mention of "calibrators" for color output to match monitor, but have never tried one.
I just change to material/color until the output is what I want. Sorry I can't be of more help.

TC

[Steve Jager]

Dont forget to use the Advanced Graphics option, shade and shadows. It will give you a much truer color rendition before printing to make sure your colors are closer.

[matthewh.104177]

We've had problems with this too, so I'd be glad to hear any ideas. When looking at a shaded 3d view from different angles, the colors become distorted at steep or shallow angles to the plane they're on, becoming super light or super dark, respectively. It seems to be that the shading algorithm or whatever does this to aid in the 3d reading of the model, but is there a way to control it better? As an added challenge, turning on shadows shifts the colors and values further. We don't want to do renderings everytime we show a view to the client, but the colors are so distorted in shaded or shadowed views, the client gets confused. I'm really tempted to just use hidden line for 3d; maybe even a little post-production crayola action.;>

[david.kingham]

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=28313

[DanielleAnderson]

To quote Aaron Rumple from the other post...


I'm still going to complain. It doesn't work for my DD/CD phases as I need the CD fills for my objects - not shaded colors. Yet I still need to produce renderings throught the whole DD/CD phase for marketing, the client and interior design. The fact is that many, many other programs including Autodesk programs produce very nice shaded views with shadows and good color fidelity.

Thanks for a good work-a-round for SD, but is still on the factory to do something about shaded views.


That is the problem with the above link to the Jeffrey McGrew thread, although I saw his demo at AU and thought for some applications that is a fabulous workaround.
I will try the advanced model graphics, but as was explained previously, it's not only the fact that my screen is showing different colors than what is printed (that is irritating, but I realize that is not Revit's fault), it's the fact that the shaded with edges view distorts pantone colors in unpredictable ways.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Hi Danielle,

check out these threads that dealt with more of the same. Not sure if it actually solves your problem.

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=14758&highlight=pantone+color+wheel

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=5371&highlight=color

As mentioned, Pantone is the best approach to getting some level of consistency from output device to output device. If you stick with Pantone it becomes an issue of printer calibration rather than monitor calibration. I don't really care what something looks like on my screen as long as it comes out the printer, any printer, looking as it's intended to look.

[DanielleAnderson]

I don't really care what something looks like on my screen as long as it comes out the printer, any printer, looking as it's intended to look.

Difficult, though, when handing off a pdf to a client...you have no idea how their printers will work...but I guess that's not really Revit's problem either. :)

I will check out those threads...