One question about stb plotting: If I use pack'n'go on a drawing set up for stb plotting, it includes the stb file. I thought the reason for named plot styles was to eliminate the need for the ctb file. What's the benefit if the drawing won't plot correctly unless you have the stb file on your system?
Chris
The STB is key in correct output. Without it, where would Acad get the lineweight, color, screening, etc. information?
Named plot styles disconnect Acad color from plotted ouput. Having to send a separate file isn't a change at all from pre-2K versions.
What I meant was, why is setting up a drawing to use an stb file any better than setting it up to use a ctb file? If someone sends me a drawing, they usually don't send me the ctb file. If the drawing is set up to use an stb file, they just won't send me the stb file. I don't see how an stb setup is any better than a ctb setup. A new user would have to be told how to set up an stb file, just the same as they'd have to told how to set up a ctb file. With a ctb drawing, you can tell how the drawing will look plotted by looking at the colours, assuming the ctb file is a standard you're used to. When I was converting our template drawings to stb to see how they'd work, I was hoping that if I set a layer to plot at 0.35mm lineweight, it would stick with the drawing, much the same at the plot scale does, not be dependant on a separate file.
Chris
Hi Tom,
Do you agree that at the and of the day to go with the either of the plot stile is a matter of choice? I have been looking at STB style for quite some time and the only advantages I see in using it is if I want to present lines thickness properly when attaching a drawing to a Word document. And even then I am not sure if it is going to work since I never tried to do this with STB styles. As we all know the drawing in Word document will be shown/printed with lines of uniform thickness, unless all of the lines were converted to polylines and assigned some width to them prior to inserting into Word doc. As for the ability to have lines of the same color but different line weight when printed. Why would I want to have a drawing created with one color only? I sure thing don't want this to happen. By the way, Microstation has been using lineweigts from the day one and it was the only option at least up till V95. Yet we always differentiate the drawing on the screen by color. To summaries the above I would like to say that amount of work involved to set up and maintain either of the style is identical. In my opinion, introduction of STB will not have as large the impact on drafting practice as the introduction of paper space did.
Regards,
Igor.
TomD wrote:
Hi Tom, Do you agree that at the and of the day to go with the either of the plot stile is a matter of choice? I have been looking at STB style for quite some time and the only advantages I see in using it is if I want to present lines thickness properly when attaching a drawing to a Word document. And even then I am not sure if it is going to work since I never tried to do this with STB styles. As we all know the drawing in Word document will be shown/printed with lines of uniform thickness, unless all of the lines were converted to polylines and assigned some width to them prior to inserting into Word doc. As for the ability to have lines of the same color but different line weight when printed. Why would I want to have a drawing created with one color only? I sure thing don't want this to happen. By the way, Microstation has been using lineweigts from the day one and it was the only option at least up till V95. Yet we always differentiate the drawing on the screen by color. To summaries the above I would like to say that amount of work involved to set up and maintain either of the style is identical. In my opinion, introduction of STB will not have as large the impact on drafting practice as the introduction of paper space did.
Regards,
Igor.
TomD wrote:
Chris wrote: > What I meant was, why is setting up a drawing to use an stb file any > better than setting it up to use a ctb file? > If someone sends me a drawing, they usually don't send me the ctb > file. If the drawing is set up to use an stb file, they just won't > send me the stb file. > I don't see how an stb setup is any better than a ctb setup. A new > user would have to be told how to set up an stb file, just the same as > they'd have to told how to set up a ctb file. With a ctb drawing, you > can tell how the drawing will look plotted by looking at the colours, > assuming the ctb file is a standard you're used to. > When I was converting our template drawings to stb to see how they'd > work, I was hoping that if I set a layer to plot at 0.35mm lineweight, > it would stick with the drawing, much the same at the plot scale does, > not be dependant on a separate file. You're drastically over simplifying everything.
With styles (CTB or STB), lineweight can be determined either by the style OR by the Acad property. The styles (again, CTB or STB) allow much greater flexibility in how everything is output.
In my OPINION, using named styles is much simpler. My STB standard uses very basic styles, BLK100 for 100% black, COL100 for 100% of object color, BLK090 FOR 90% BLACK, ETC. Lineweight is determined by Acad property (layer or object).
The ease of use has nothing to do with transfer of files. If you're looking for an absolute *easy* way of making sure the recipient of your file gets the same output as you do, with only one sent file, you'll have to go to PDF or some such other format.
Yes, I would agree. I've mentioned in other posts on this topic that either can be appropriate. What I strongly disagree with is when I see people suggesting to folks who are new that CTB is the way to do it. While this may be true for some, I would suggest it is not for most. For R14 I had a relatively elaborate scheme to obtain the output we require. While it was adequate for most of our work, some situations required specifically modified pen configurations. Since switching to A2K, I haven't had any such problem, and explaining our pen settings takes approximately 3 minutes, versus considerably more with the old color based approach. The old system took some experience to truly understand.
Most of our contract drawings (waterline/sewer line installation, grading plans, recorded survey plans, etc.) are done monochrome. We also do things such as zoning plans, aerial photos with property overlayed and other 'specialty' plans. To get such varied output and retain some color flexibility with R14, we had four PC3's. One full size color, one half size color, one full size mono and one half size mono. Even this wasn't always sufficient. With our STB, we have one, which hasn't been insufficient in any way to this point.
I was mentioning to Tom Berger in another thread that this is why there are such heated debates on here about different aspects of Acad. We tend to think everyone works as we do. To me, the CTB seems absurd, but stepping back from my work, I realize that for many it's more than sufficient. If there is no benefit in going to STB, then it shouldn't be done, just because I say it's better.
Again, my biggest point here being that anyone new to Acad and making this decision should at the very least investigate both methods. My suggestion to most would be STB.
I've never liked Microstation, though my opinion is rather biased. I've never tried using it in production and never put much effort into learning it. Because of my Acad background, I just didn't like it.
I'll disagree with the first point (reasons above) and agree with the second. While STB won't likely have a large impact on drafting practice, it can make life much easier for some (if not most) Acad users. Remember how long it took most of the Acad world to come around to using paperspace? I remember the same types of comments then, "Why should I use it, I've got along this far without it?", or "I can get the same ouptut without using it, so why should I learn it?".
I believe it was introduced in R11, though it wasn't widely used for some time after it's introduction. It was a pretty wild concept at the time, at least for me. I remember gasping the first time I saw my drawing disappear, and zoom extents didn't bring it back. ;)
The simplest answer I can think of:
STB uses named styles as a property, defined by you (or your CAD manager).
CTB uses object color to determined plotted output.
Both can provide the same output, however using CTB ties the output to the object color. If something is green, it's output will be determined by the CTB definition for green. If using STB, the pen style assigned determines the output, not the color.
Hi Tom,
Glad to see we have agreed on most of the points . By the way have you ever tried to insert a Cad file with the line weights into Word document? I am asking just out of curiosity and if you did, what was the outcome in terms of printing the file from Word?
Thanks,
Igor.
Not really. My work doesn't lend itself to letter/legal sheets very well, so it doesn't often come up. When I have done that type of thing, it's generally simple enough to do with Word's graphic editing thing. I remember doing a couple of details and exporting to WMF, then inserting the WMF into Word. They were on the simple side, too.
If you'd like, I can try it out here and let you know what the results were like.
Thanks Tom, but don't bother with the test. I will do it myself some day and let you know the outcome. The reason why I have mentioned this in a first place is that a few years ago I was asked to produce some Word documents with drawings embedded into them. To get the print output reasonably good I had to convert all of the entities in the drawings into polylines and assign width to them. That's why I wander if with the line weight preset it would make difference when inserting dwg. into doc.
Regards,
Igor.
P.S. No one has ever asked me to do this type of work ever since .
TomD wrote:
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