Hi Everyone, I’m new to the forums – any help with this issue would be greatly appreciated… We recently changed from an older version of Microstation to Microstation Connect Edition Update 7 – Version 10.07.00.39. I am using Print Organizer to generate monochrome TIFF images of my DGN graphics. These DGN graphics contain filled shapes, these shapes reside on level 50. When I generate the TIFF image from Print Organizer the outline of the filled shapes is not included with the filled inside of the shape on the TIFF image, and I need the outline of the shapes to be included. The outline of these shapes is line weight zero and is the same color as the filled inside portion. I was told by Bentley support that I would have to make the color of the shape outline different from the filled inside color in order for Print Organizer to include the shape outline on the TIFF image. Does anyone know of another way to accomplish this without having to change these colors on my existing DGN graphics?.. We have literally tens of thousands of existing DGN graphics and changing the outline color of all the shapes on all these graphics would be a huge and expensive effort. Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated. Thanks
The current behavior exists because it is (or at least used to be) a common workflow to create compound shapes by abutting multiple filled shapes with zero-width borders next to each other. On the screen, you can't tell the result is not one single filled object. However, on a vector plotter, the interior polygon fill and outline are dithered differently, resulting in a jigsaw-like effect. *Not* printing a zero-width border, when the border is the same color as the interior fill, yields the closest match to what the graphics hardware produces in the view.
There is an undocumented configuration variable that can be used to change this behavior: MS_PLT_FILL_OUTLINE_THRESHOLD. Range of values is -1 through 31, corresponding to index weights. The default is -1. When printing a polygon outline with the same color as the fill, if the outline weight is greater than the threshold value, the outline is suppressed. To ensure *all* outlines are printed, set the threshold weight to 31.
However, be aware that this operating mode is *neither formally nor informally tested*. I really don't know if it still works or not. I do recall the idea was to make this a documented feature, but we found enough problems with undesirable polygon outlines in printouts to nix the plan. So good luck if you choose to go that route, and know that you're on your own. That said, unwanted outlines would probably be less of an issue in monochrome TIFF than full color HP-GL/2 or vector PDF.
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ok simple solution was to edit the pentable to select everthing on the expected level 51, change the outline output to a differnt rgb value a slightly darker shade of red, and set under the options to explode cells.. it still did not work perfect on the arcs within the cells, so i suggested to actualy drop the cells where they are located and then print via the modified pentable and edit the TIFF driver to 600 dpi rather than 300 default to get the resolution of the tips of the comet tails to show...
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Answer Verified By: Barry Bolton
That did the trick! thanks very much this definitely helped!