Shadows versus lineweights

[gordonp147484]

We are having some discussion about how you show depth in an elevation. I submit that turning shadows on, perhaps toning them down a bit, and making sure they are on for print, is better than manually going thru every drawing manually doing line weights or half tone. Another option is the pane of glass approach, but it only works in a 3D, and you can't dimension, so you end up needing another view with all the model stuff off and doing a composite and that is a kludge, and...
Anyway, wondering what others do

Design Drawings
Shadows on?
Line weights?
Screened using Half Tone?
Screened using 3D view and glass?

DD/CD Drawings
Shadows on?
Line weights?
Screened using Half Tone?
Screened using 3D view and glass?

Thanks!
Gordon

[rjcrowther]

I have been heavily engaged in contract work lately so I have been doing the lineweight thing using graphic overrides. The benefits of this are:
By sticking to the providers standards, I get to see more contract work come through the door
The elevations get a good review and check.

Personally I don't like the lineweigh method. Mainly because I now have a tool (Revit) that can do a lot better so why should I restrict myself.

So, for my own work, I prefer to use shadows in elevations.
I set all lineweights to 0.18mm and shadows to 20.
The sun angle is always over my right shoulder 45deg from vertical, 45 deg from horizontal.

I also plot in colour with the colour refering to hatching/fill patterns only. This allows for some material indication that stands out from the linework and the builder (who is unlikely to own a colour plotter) gets shades of grey so it still makes some sense to them.

Planning, Building Licence, Contract Docs - all the same....you get some benefits of standardization that way. Also, by doing this I know the result without constantly checking so I can leave shadows off until the end end not have the computer labour under the weight of constantly having to re-calculate shadows every time I pan or zoom.

Good Luck,
Rob

[sven.129574]

A side effect of using shadows is that it may adversely affect plot quality. If you plot a sheet that has a view with shadows, it must use raster graphics instead of vector graphics. What we found with our Oce plotters was that this made hatching less readable. Your milage may vary, depending on the make and model of your printer/plotter, and the driver you are using.

We usually rely on Advanced Model Graphics and the Linework tool. Another trick we use is to halftone distant building forms. Go to a 3D view, select the buildings, then go back to the elevation, and use overrides to halftone them.

[patricks]

hmm we run an Oce TDS600 plotter and I can't tell any difference between sheets plotted on vector vs. sheets plotted on raster setting.

[mruehr]

hmm we run an Oce TDS600 plotter and I can't tell any difference between sheets plotted on vector vs. sheets plotted on raster setting.

This is strange our TDS600 sucks when printing grayscale and Raster
we tried everything including giving a sample to the Oce Guys
we are moving next week to the TDS750(I guess)which has much better Dithering and looks
better with shaded prints
can you tell us your setup for the TDS600??this stuns me