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Symbol Design Tutorial Part 4: Composite Symbols


   
  Applies To 
   
  Product(s): gINT Logs, gINT Professional, gINT Professional Plus
  Version(s): 8.x
  Environment:  N\A
  Area:  Symbol Design
  Subarea:  N\A
  Original Author: Kathleen Holcomb, Bentley Technical Support Group
   

Note: This exercise requires the use of training.gpj project and training.glb library available from: download.aspx.  Instructions for unzipping and setting up these files is on: using gint downloaded examples.aspx.

Symbol Design Tutorial Part 4: Composite Symbols

Composite symbols are fill patterns created from one or more other fill patterns, generally tiles and solids (although hatches and bitmap fills can also be used). Unlike a tile, whose pattern you draw, you do not draw a composite symbol. Instead, you compose it by superimposing tiles (or other component fills), layering them and arranging them from side to side within the symbol. You can control certain properties of each of the component fills, such as their scaling, color, whether or not vertical borders appear, and so on.
Let’s look at a material composite symbol, see how it is constructed from tiles, and perform some manipulations.

  1. Ensure that training.glb is the current library and training.gpj is the current project.
  2. Go to SYMBOL DESIGN  Material. Select ‘GP-GC’ in the object selector.
  3. Notice the two rows in the data entry grid. Each of these specifies how one component fill is used in the composite symbol.
      • The first row says to use the tile ‘GRAV01’ (which is the gravel tile we used previously). It will cover the entire horizontal range (0% to 100%) of the area to be filled.
      • The second row says to use the tile ‘LINE45D01’, but only from the middle to the right edge (50% to 100%). A vertical border is also added to the left of the tile, to delimit the left and right halves of the composite symbol.
  4. Notice the preview area beneath the data entry grid. This displays how the symbol will appear when used to fill areas with different height-to-width ratios.
  5. To see what ‘LINE45D01’ consists of, go to SYMBOL DESIGN  Tiles, then select ‘LINE45D01’ in the object selector. The tile’s drawing consists of a single diagonal line from the lower left corner to upper right.
  6. Click the Properties  icon, then click the Tile Structure tab. Notice that the cell is .05" square, which is considerably smaller (1/8th the height) of the ‘GRAV01’ tile we viewed in Part 3. The Mapping is ‘Repeat’, which creates a tile pattern like the following:
  7. Return to SYMBOL DESIGN  Material. We will make a copy of the ‘GP-GC’ symbol and make some modifications.
  8. Select File  Copy Page. In Page Names to Copy To, enter ‘A TEST MATL SYMBOL’, and click OK.
  9. Let’s make the diagonal lines more widely spread apart. To do this, specify a Scale value of ‘2’ in the second row of the grid. This enlarges the tile to twice its actual size in both the horizontal and vertical.
  10. Click the Preview  button to see the result at the bottom of the window. (The display is not automatically refreshed—you have to click Preview.)

    Note: The View Multiplier field above the grid allows you to preview the final symbol at different scales. When unspecified, the preview is at 100% (that is, ‘1’ or blank). If you were to enter ‘2’ and preview, you would zoom in. If you were to enter ‘.5’, you’d zoom out.

  11. Change the Override Color in the second row to ‘Very Light Red’, then preview. The diagonal lines and vertical border in the right half of the symbol change to red.
  12. Change the Override Color in the first row to ‘Very Light Orange’, then preview.

    Notice that the gravel tile extends all the way across the material symbol, so it affects both the left and right halves.

    Notice also that the closed polyline shapes that make up the gravel tile are not colored in. This is because the shapes are hollow in the underlying tile. We need a gravel tile with filled shapes if we want them to be a solid color.

  13. Go to SYMBOL DESIGN  Tiles. Select ‘GRAV02’ in the object selector. Notice that the description of this tile in the object selector reads “GRAVEL: SOLID, DIFFERENT SIZES”.
  14. Notice that in the main SYMBOL DESIGN display, this gravel looks the same as ‘GRAV01’. We need to preview to see its actual appearance. Click the Preview  icon.

  15. Return to SYMBOL DESIGN  Material.
  16. Highlight the first row in the grid (the one for ‘GRAV01’) by clicking in the light blue cell to its left, then press Delete.
  17. Enter values for the replacement gravel tile in the empty bottom row. Click in the Fill Type[!Symbol] cell in this row, then click the Browse  button that appears in the cell. Specify a Type of ‘TILE’ and a Symbol of ‘GRAV02’.
  18. In the same row, specify a From % of ‘0’, a To % of ‘100’, and an Override Color of ‘Very Light Orange’. Preview the symbol. Notice now that the gravel pieces are solid orange.
  19. You can also create a solid background in the composite symbol. To do this you add a new row that specifies a solid instead of a tile. In the blank empty row at the bottom of the grid, enter ‘SOLID’ in the Fill Type[!Symbol] cell (a Type of ‘SOLID’, and nothing entered for Symbol), and an Override Color of ‘Very Light Gray’.
  20. Preview the symbol. Oops! We’ve turned everything solid gray.

    The problem here is that the order of rows in the data entry grid specifies the layer order (also sometimes called print order) of the component fills, in other words, what prints on top of what. The order of rows, from start to end, specifies the order of layers from bottom to top—first row on the bottom, second row on top of that, and so on. To put the gray solid at the bottom, it needs to be the first row, not the last. And to put the diagonal lines on top, that tile needs to be the last row.

    To reorder rows, you position the mouse pointer in the blue square to the left of the row you want to move, press and hold down the right mouse button, and drag the row up or down.

  21. Right-mouse drag the ‘SOLID’ row so that it is first in the grid. Then right-mouse drag the ‘LINE45D01’ row so that it is last in the grid. Preview the symbol. Now we have the desired effect.
  22. Click the Save  icon to save the composite symbol.

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