I have run into an issue regarding color books and pentables. Our office workflow is to use the "color table" index colors 0 thru 255 for plotting black and greytone colors. "Color Book colors" are to be used for adding colors that need to plot in color. However, it appears that Color Book Colors are are taking on Color Table Index numbers when setting up the selection criteria in pen tables. Therefore they are plotting black instead of desired color. For example when I want all "fills" with Color Table Index 0-248,255 to plot black I would create a selection criteria in pen table with this Index information placed under the Color Fills Box and the output criteria for these would be to plot black. However, when I set this up in pentable all fills including "color book fills" are plotting black and I cannot fiqure out why this is happening. Any help would be greatly appreciated. For your reference I have attached the folowing 7 files:
3 print screens of test cases illustrating this issue.
pentable file and pltcfg driver used
Color Book Print Test.dgn (File used in test cases)
Projectcolorbook.dgnlib. (contains color book)
Thanks in advance for your help. Tom
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Andrew, I appreciate the reply. However, I guess I am a little confused. How is the color book color mapped to its matching index color and why?. The index colors have certain RGB colors that are all different than the RGB values in color books. Is it an approximation? Can the index color that the color book is mapped be controlled? I may need to file a change request (or trouble report). This behavior really seems to limit the usefullness of color book colors. In a production enviroment most plotting is done with B/W and grey scale so I am having a problem knowing what index colors to set to plot black? What is a workflow that Bentley proposes to utilize for Color Book colors. TIA Tom
I'm not sure about the technical details; that will require some research on my part. At first glance, it appears that the closest matching color index is used.
Pen tables were designed for a simpler time. When named colors and RGB colors were introduced to MicroStation, it posed significant problems to the pen table architecture. I can't say for sure, but I imagine the current behavior was due to customer request during the early years of MicroStation V8. Or at least it seemed right at the time, and no one complained.
I agree with you that it makes more sense for the pen table to not match against elements with named colors or RGB colors. That would allow hybrid designs with both WYSIWYG colors and traditional pen table resymbolization. But the current behavior has been in place too long for it to be changed unconditionally.
I'm familiar with the service ticket you filed (I assume that was you) and have spoken with the support analyst about the issue.
If it weren't for the priority assignments in your pen table output actions, I would suggest relying on the pen-based color mappings. They have no effect on elements with named or RGB colors. However, it not possible to assign element priority at the pen level. Is your workflow such that you will not need to assign priority to elements with named colors? That would be one reason you might want the current behavior, flawed as it is. Or perhaps your adoption of new MicroStation features is moving you out of the workflows that the MicroStation pen table was designed to support, and you should look at a no-pen-table, WYSIWYG workflow.
Thanks for the feedback, Yes it is me that also posted the Service Ticket. I have disabled all the Pentable "Element Section" Settings and Just set the Global Actions "Pen Mapping colors" to black and grey scale. This seems to allow for the mix of Color book colors and Color Index Colors I desire. However, I lose all my priority setting as you mentioned. Some priority settings can be handled through Level setting that I have updated. However some element level priority settings I still need to think about how to best to get them to display correctly on a consistant basis. (Maybe element template to custom tool is the best answer) In upcoming releases, it would be benfiical to gain the pentable flexibily to correctly interpet Color Book colors or just to clarify how color book colors are interpetted by pentables.
Thanks again for the info Tom
Andrew Edge: Pen tables were designed for a simpler time. When named colors and RGB colors were introduced to MicroStation, it posed significant problems to the pen table architecture.
Pen tables were designed for a simpler time. When named colors and RGB colors were introduced to MicroStation, it posed significant problems to the pen table architecture.
Andrew,
the issue I want to bring up is only indirectly related, but I want you to become aware of it. We had problems with color book colors in DWG translation. In the CSV file used for DWG conversion settings there is no option for mapping RGB or color book colors. (I had CR 8000573298 filed for the issue).
Together with the pentable issue in this thread it indicates that support for color book colors has been implemented rather poorly. Both, printing and file conversion are task a CAD user has to handle on a daily basis. Therefore we can assume, that most of them will make use of related tools to streamline these processes. It is therefore a great pitty, when very valuable enhancements like color books will be neglected by the users because their efficient usage in established workflows is obstructed.
I therefore hope that Bentley will adress these issues and enable us to benefit from the great advantages which color books offer.
Regards
Gunnar
Gunnar: Support for color book colors has been implemented rather poorly. Valuable enhancements like color books will be neglected by the users because their efficient usage in established workflows is obstructed.
FlexiTable™ has a number of tools that help with CAD administration.
One of those tools is colour management. Colour management works with traditional color tables and V8i Color Books. You can create custom Color Books and import/export those as CSV data, convert them to color tables, and create documentation with a palette of named colours.
I don't know if FlexiTable could help with this particular issue of DWG export.
Regards, Jon Summers LA Solutions