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Lines too light

E

electrodynamics

Member
Lines too light

Greetings People:

I am having some problems printing dwg's in 2-D mode. I have been using the standard templates. When I print, in some templates, most of the lines come in too light. You can hardly see the drawing. I opened two templates (one that work, one that doesn't) and try to compare their difference (lineweight, etc.) but they seem identical to me.
I was wondering how you can control this. I do want some lines dark and a couple light. But I would like to control.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.
 
E

electrodynamics

Member


Thank you Miles,

This controls the line width. How wide it will appear on the drawing. Thought you can use this to make the lines appear darker in the drawing what I want is to control how dark the intensity of the lines appear. In Autocad the easy way is to change this is in the print settings change the pen style monochrome or grayscale (cheating). The problem I'm having is that all the lines appear super light in the drawing and you can't see the drawing. The only things that print out are the arrows of the dimensions and notes and the numbers of the zones. I tried to open a template that prints ok and one that doesn't (D size) and try to compare the difference. They seem the same to me :shock: :roll:
If there is no help that's ok. Should I re-load Alibre standard templates and customize them?

ok,

Thanks.
 
S

siggy

Senior Member


Sounds like you have played with the line weights of the various layers but have you played with the line color and scale factor? I know on my printer if I leave the hidden line layer color set to the default grey it is barely readable when printed. If I change that color just one or two shades darker using the custom color dialog it prints fine.
 
W

WoodWorks

Alibre Super User
Darker Lines

I found that increasing the line width was Alibre's way of making darker lines, and posted that information (see MilesH link) to help others. It is the method that I use to darken my lines for my large (and smaller) format plots.

I favor .3mm lines for my visible lines as they are just enough darker than the .25mm standard, but not too wide. Just do some test printouts and decide for yourself. I started with .3mm, .5mm, and .7mm tests based on my favorite mechanical drafting pencils (remember the days when we used to draw by hand?).

I also customize my drawing properties to increase the text size to something legible on all sizes of drawings.

The Continuous line is what is used for dimension lines, and .10mm is a little too thin to reproduce well, and gets lost on large plots.

Try different colors, as an old AutoCAD trick to make a line darker was to map it to red (it made a darker black). I know I will be taking a second look at the colors currently used for various lines, and doing more test plots.

I am using an HP Designjet 130 printer, and other standard HP printers and I am having good results by changing my default line width to create my darker lines. Anyone that finds a better way, please post so we all can benefit.

Kirk Kelsey
 
M

mrehmus

Senior Member


There is a standard for line widths and if implemented, make it unnessesary to modify line color.

They are of 3 classes:
Thick (for boarders, visible object lines, Cutting planes, etc.
Medium (for hidden lines, etc.)
Thin (for section lines, center lines, dimension lines, extension and phantom lines.)

NIH calls out the following which I think is a bit too heavy for my B-sized magazine drawings. Great for D-size or E-size, I'd think. I pull about .05mm off the light end and .15mm on the heaviest end.:

"
3.1 Tables For Creating Drawings
3.1.1 Line Weight
Line weights are used to improve drawing readability. The table below shows some typical weights and their uses in construction drawings.

Line weight
Line weight
Layer name*
Description

Thin
0.18 mm/0.007 in.
THIN
Dimension leaders/ witness lines, dimension lines, object lines seen in the distance, and most patterns.

Medium
0.25 mm/0.010 in.
MEDM
Minor object lines, line terminators (arrowheads and ticks), hidden lines, and note leader lines.

Medium thick
0.35 mm/0.014 in.
MEDT
Most object lines, text, schedule boxes, and charts.

Thick
0.50 mm/0.020 in.
THIK
Minor title underlining, title text, object lines requiring special emphasis.

Extra thick
0.70 mm/0.028 in.
XTHK
Use sparingly for underlining titles and separating portions of drawings, elevation grade lines, building footprints, and top of grade markings. "


This is a good reference and can be found at:

http://orf.od.nih.gov/CAD_Deliverable_Standards.htm#311
 
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