Original Article Date: April 1, 2003
MicroStation V8 is delivered with two RIP drivers: ripwin32_gray8.plt for gray-scale printing and ripwin32_rgb24.plt for 24-bit RGB colour printing. These RIP drivers allow you to set the transparency for filled shapes and more!
In A quick solution to plot transparent shapes in V7 we took a look an easy way to make solid filled shapes transparent thus allowing an attached raster image such as an aerial photograph to show through. Although this method is great for MicroStation /J, it doesn't work as described for V8. Instead, use this technique as suggested by Bill Dougherty from Bentley's Plotting Software Support team!MicroStation V8 is delivered with two RIP drivers: ripwin32_gray8.plt for gray-scale printing and ripwin32_rgb24.plt for 24-bit RGB colour printing. These RIP drivers generate a pure raster version of what's being printed by essentially burning the vector data into the underlying raster images. But that's not all! The RIP drivers also allow you to assign the following:
So, with that said, let's take a look at how to apply transparency to the green shape in the graphics below:
From the Print dialog, select the appropriate RIP driver....ripwin32_gray8.plt for gray-scale or ripwin32_rgb24.plt for colour. Next, go to Pentable > New and keyin a name for a pentable; you'll be rewarded by Modify Pen Table dialog! Double click the NEW section and rename it to something that's more suitable.
In the Element Criteria tab, adjust the settings so that MicroStation can easily find the elements requiring transparency.In the Output Actions tab, turn on Transparency and adjust the value to your liking.
Save the changes to the pen table and proceed with your plot. Now, one thing to note is that you won't be able to see transparency on the Plot Preview so perhaps the following diagram will give you an idea of what values to use.
Happy plotting!
AskInga Article #137