Black Background?

[saeborne]

Is there anyway to make revit use a black background with white lines? I think the white background is leading to eye strain.

[Tyveka]

Yes.
Under settings, options, on the graphics tab, put a checkmark in the box labeled "invert background colour."

That should do the trick for you.

[Steve Jager]

Yes, but it will cause even more eye strain as it does not work well with text and dims.
Under Options

[twiceroadsfool]

This may strictly be perception as well, but i would almost swear it lags more, display wise.

I went to go back to the dark screen, as the white background kills my eyes on a day to day basis... :(

[iru69]

I dig this wishlist item up every once in a while to no avail...

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=22294

[Justin Marchiel]

i find that when working with colored lines (such as in acad, adt, etc) you need a black background to make the lines pop. When working in black lines (like most revit stuff) i find the white background is easier to focus on.

Justin

[patricks]

agreed.

In AutoCAD, the colors were a way of denoting line weight. That's the old way of doing things. Since WYSIWYG is the case in Revit, we work with real line weights and black lines, just like they will be printed on paper.

After using Revit nearly 3 years now, I'm pretty used to the white background.

I feel kind of lucky to not have had much AutoCAD experience at all, as it makes it easier for me to adjust to the way Revit does things. I'm not always searching or wishing for ways to make it behave like AutoCAD.

[sleimgruber06]

Is there anyway to make revit use a black background with white lines? I think the white background is leading to eye strain.
I feel you just need to realize that Revit is the future... no more ACad for you, you dont want any memories of ACad...you must rid yourself of ACad to cleanse your soul... ;)

[Calvn_Swing]

That being said, white on a computer screen is achieved by producing a lot of light with little to no screening. Black is achieved by blocking as much light as possible.

Therefore it follows that a White screen will cause more eye fatigue than a Black screen. This won't bother us young folks, but for the old fogies this can be a problem.

Also, I'd point out that once LED backlit screens and especially OLEDs and other newer technologies become available for our displays, a Black screen will use less energy because these reactive technologies don't create light where they don't need it. This is how they reduce energy consumption in general. When you're not making light and then blocking it with a dark pixel, you can save a lot of juice. So, all you green nuts out there (like me) will have an internal conflict between our white light emitting monitors and energy conservation...

Then again, this internal conflict is nothing new. Heck, we're architects, destroying the environment one building at a time! (Yes, I'm kidding, mostly...)

[Dimitri Harvalias]

This won't bother us young folks, but for the old fogies this can be a problem.

..)HEY! I resemble that remark.
Speaking as an old fogie who has been staring at computer screens for about 20 years now I don't find eye strain a problem and, if my old fogie memory serves me, I don't recall the change being a problem for me when I made the switch from ACAD.

That said, it is all about personal perception. I happen to like the contrast with the black on white and do recall that changing to a laptop (LCD) display from an old CRT was an improvement.

[fernando]

in Revit I spend more than 50% of time working in tables, parameter boxes, opening family editor, browsing my library, and working in 3D, looking at colored views, shadowed views, real world colored ones, not negative images. Try that in a black screen.


Correction, 75% ..... in my actual workflow

[twiceroadsfool]

Its not an AutoCAD thing, for me, its an eye thing. And eye problems arent just for you old timers, lol.

Im 25, have bifocals, and problems with sensitivity to light and muscle strain in my eyes already. I used the black screen all the time in AutoCAD, and i used the dark blue one in Microsoft Word all through college.

I might try going back to the black this week in Revit, ill have to do some experiments with it. For whatever reason, im convinced it just wasnt as responsive when i was moving around. Maybe i just wasnt used to looking at it.

The best solution (for me anyway) would be having the capability to set the background colot to whatever. Id make it gray, so the drawings didnt have to invert, and the white wouldnt drive me so nuts.

[Teresa.Martin]

Here, Here! Gray would be a wonderful 'Third' Option, especially in offices with skylights and very large windows. Depending upon the time of year it can be difficult to see the screen if it is white or black. Sometimes, a monitor screen (the kind they sell for CRTs) can be helpful in this regard. The option to change the background color to whatever the user requires would be quite helpful!

[dbaldacchino]

I tried the black background when I started in Revit, but soon found it to be limiting since I spend most of my time working in 3D shaded views. I encourage people to get out of flat views and observe the building because when you just sit in 2D (and not think vertically), a lot of mistakes happen. A black screen just doesn't cut it. To help with eye strain, lower the brightness of your screen. Some people leave it blazing white and that's surely not comfortable. It's like sound.....if you leave a radio loud, you'll adjust to it and make it louder and louder. Spend a little time with a slightly darker screen and you'll get used to it....it really helps relax your eyes.

[Martin P]

If the option is there - it should work properly, its as simple as that. The black background does not work in REVIT, and it never has. This is entirely because it has been poorly implemented by Revit - nothing to do with it doesnt work for 3D, tables, families etc etc - autocad,viz (most cad packages) all manage fine with or without white backgrounds. It just that has just been given very little (or no) effort to being made to work well in Revit - and this has also been know about by Revit development for VERY long time.

If somebody prefers either black or white or grey to work on that is really up to the individual, the choice that is already there should be made useable, no question. In autocad I like both options - just depends what I am doing, but in general I would prefer the black background, I only use the white in Revit because I have to - it would not be my choice. I would not suggest that somebody who prefers to use a background colour different to my preferences is wrong, just that they have a different preference, or different eyes to me.

Windows has settings for high contrast, and some horrible colour colour schemes for people with visual problems - It looks horrible and if you have perfectly good eyes it would be unpleasant to work with, but if it allows somebody to do their job better, or at all, who am I to say they should be using something else just because its not what I would like to use?

Having had severe eye problems myself recently the black background would be much better for me personally if it worked properly - The issue it is not about brightness, it is about contrast. You get a much better contrast with a black background and the brightness turned up high. Simply turning the brightness down also reduces the contrast, so it is not a solution at all.

I also found it very dissapointing that I cannot appear alter size or style of fonts in the project browser within Revit.

[ws]

If it's any help I solved my eyestrain problems by investing in Wacom Cintiq displays - the display in a tablet thing. You look down at your work - and can lean on the display (and generally mess it up just like an old drawing board).
Terrific if you use reading glasses perched on the end of your nose (as I do to try and make me look intelligent ;) )

It also helps if you have the monitor calibrated properly - there are reasonably priced utilities around now to do that - although I still tend to turn down the brightness slightly.

FWIW it took Nemetschek many years in Allplan to get around to allowing any colour of background (I use 'tracing paper' gray)... I guess it will be some years before we see it in Revit.

[Steve Jager]

We had someone that insisted a lt grey background with reds lines was the way to go. The average person could not even see anything on their screen. Come to find out the individual was partially color blind.

[twiceroadsfool]

I tried the black background when I started in Revit, but soon found it to be limiting since I spend most of my time working in 3D shaded views. I encourage people to get out of flat views and observe the building because when you just sit in 2D (and not think vertically), a lot of mistakes happen. A black screen just doesn't cut it. To help with eye strain, lower the brightness of your screen. Some people leave it blazing white and that's surely not comfortable. It's like sound.....if you leave a radio loud, you'll adjust to it and make it louder and louder. Spend a little time with a slightly darker screen and you'll get used to it....it really helps relax your eyes.

Good call, i never even thought to check it. Its going to take some getting used to, but i lowered the brightness from 90 to 20, LOL.

I still prefer the black background, but not nearly enough to complain about it. :)

[dbaldacchino]

My contrast is still high, but all you need to do is lower the brightness just enough so it's not considered as a light house :) It helps to have a good LCD....I swear by the quality of my Samsung. They have a really nice consistent brightness across the screen and don't suffer from some of the problems I've seen with the Dells we've been getting (I asked for my old monitor back in fact!)