DWF quality problem

[Chad Smith]

I've brought this issue up on the DWF newsgroup but haven't received any useful answers/explanations, so maybe the Revit factory guys might be able to explain.

Here is the post:

We are still getting very poor quality DWF files from Revit (see attachment).

The problem is when colour is added to a Revit drawing view, and when printed, that coloured view is rasterised.
The DWF files are larger than PDF's and regenerate a lot slower on screen than in Acrobat.

Increasing the DPI of the DWF file will not work as it will only make the screen regeneration go even slower.
Currently there is no reason to switch to DWF as we can get a better file in PDF.

Is this being worked on, so we can actually get a vector DWF file out of Revit, as a DWF should?

As you can see in the attached DWF file, the section to the bottom looks great and vector like, but the plan above it is rasterised :?. Two completely different looking views on the one sheet, one good, the other ****.

[LRaiz]

I suspect you will get better results if you do not use solid color fills for materials in your top view. Using solid fills causes the use of raster display techniques for an entire view.

[Chad Smith]

Your right Leonid, removing the colour fill does fix the problem, but I need colour for presentation purposes. Even when using a colour fill, for say floor tiling, that has a fill pattern and is black, it still rasterises the view. So even for our construction documents which we are using colour fills to define tiled and carpet areas, we still can't use the DWF format. Other examples on which this happens is shaded 3D views. Wireframe 3D views are fine.

So from what your saying, it IS a Revit issue, not a DWF one?
Is this something that is being looked at, and could/will be fixed for the next Revit/DWF release?

I've been anxious to use the DWF format for some time now, but not in it's current state.

[greg.mcdowell]

Coming at this thread from the recent conversation about DWF vs PDF and you're right on target Chad... it is unfortunate that DWF from Revit treats Fill Patterns as Raster (though I think only if they're drafting patterns which does make some sense I guess)... still, I wish DWF from Revit were more like DWF from AutoCAD in this regard (we too use Fill Patterns, many of which are by necessity drafting patterns, to help describe materials)