What is the smart way to add colour to plants ?

[Viper x 1]

I am trying to work out the smartest way to upgrade a black and white drawing into a colour display drawing.

The first and most important challenge is to add colour fill to all the plant symbols in the drawing.

What I have done in the past is click on a plant symbol and using the attributes palatte I have changed fill from "None" to solid and I have then picked a colour. Next I then use the eye dropper tool to transfer that colour fill to all the other plants.

This works OK but I can not then turn the colour fill off and on for all the plants in one hit or more importantly change the colour across all the plants in one hit.

Is there a way of having the colour fill in a class of its own that can be turned on and off by simply turning the class off or on ?

So is there a better way ?

How do the experienced people here apply colour to a drawing ?

Thanks Viper

[Robert Anderson 129]

You can use attributes-by-class. Class all your plants the same way (or in an organized way) and set that class to have a fill color that is "used at creation" (see the Edit Class dialog that displays when you double-click an entry in the Classes... dialog).

[Viper x 1]

So is this the process:

1.Begin placing plants in a drawing in a created class that has fill set to "none" and "used at creation" box ticked ?

2.Finish placing all the plants ( which will be hundreds ) and all which will be just for a black and white line drawing.

3. Come back and now need to colour this drawing for display.

4. What is the next step to fill all the plant symbols with colour ( other than my previous 1 by 1 eye dropper method )

I need two versions of the same drawing, one in black and white with no fills or colour and one seperate that is fully coloured up.

If I understand this :

quote :

"You can use attributes-by-class. Class all your plants the same way (or in an organized way) and set that class to have a fill color that is "used at creation" (see the Edit Class dialog that displays when you double-click an entry in the Classes... dialog)."

This will place the plants as I put them on the drawing with a chosen fill colour from the outset, which is not what I require, I need a basic black and white drawing complete as a base drawing and then a colour version.

I am not clear on what you are proposing Robert.

Thanks Viper

[ 08-06-2004, 08:22 AM: Message edited by: Viper x ]

[Robert Anderson 129]

You're asking for two things that are really unrelated:

1. The ability to turn off color. (This is easy -- it's a document preference called "Black and White only")

2. The ability to change the color of an entire category of objects at a time. For this you use attributes by class as I previously described. Class all the plants you want similarly colored, and use the class color to control them.

[Viper x 1]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Anderson:

You're asking for two things that are really unrelated:

1. The ability to turn off color. (This is easy -- it's a document preference called "Black and White only")

2. The ability to change the color of an entire category of objects at a time. For this you use attributes by class as I previously described. Class all the plants you want similarly colored, and use the class color to control them.

---

Number 1.

I have not tried this but are you suggesting creating all the plants from the outset with the desired fill colour and then tick the "black and white only" box in document preferences ?

Does this remove the fill or just make the fill.....well "black and white" ?

Bear with me as adding colour to a drawing is a new journey for this black duck.

thanks Viper

[Robert Anderson 129]

It does not remove the fill -- it just turns it B+W until you turn off the option.

(Excuse me for asking, but why all the questions? Why not just try it and see what it does?)

[Viper x 1]

This is where I am confused.

I have made test plants in a drawing in a new class that has "fill set to none" as I want because most drawing are just line work.

I then go to the class dialog box and edit the class and change it to a colour > click Ok > go back to the drawing and the plants in that class have not changed to coloured fill ?

I even move the plants to re generate but they don't not change.

So I am thinking I can not "post" change the plants already on the drawing to coloured fill by editing the class dialog box, but only subsequent plants will be coloured and filled so I try placing new plants in the drawing but they still do not have colour.

?

[ 08-06-2004, 09:49 AM: Message edited by: Viper x ]

[Viper x 1]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Anderson:

It does not remove the fill -- it just turns it B+W until you turn off the option.

(Excuse me for asking, but why all the questions? Why not just try it and see what it does?)

---

I am trying, constantly, but it is not as clear to some as it is to others.

You have to appreciate that my skills (and others I would surmise from reading this board) do not lie in CAD as such, but at the heart of "landscape Design" which is Horticulture.

Ask me about the growing conditions of some thousands of plants and I too would come across as an expert, but as can be seen CAD skills is a necessary evil required to express those horticultural skills.

My inate skill is in designing and cultivating plants in a landscape not in technical CAD drafting, they are skills and mind sets planets away from each other, so as a result I find CAD challenging.

What you are experiencing is me struggling to do both

Viper

[ 08-06-2004, 09:55 AM: Message edited by: Viper x ]

[Robert Anderson 129]

When you change the class, do you have the "Use at Creation" box checked?

[Viper x 1]

So after much practice I have managed to :

1. I have a number of plants in the drawing that are just polyline circles (and not through the place plant tool) and I tried to change them into colour fill and bingo it worked perfectly by changing the class from none to fill/colour in the class dialog box.

This is what I have tried to do with all the other plants in the drawing but it will not work.

2. So I used the same steps to try again to change all the plants in the drawing that were placed through the place plant tool, the exact same steps but again it does not work !

ie the plants in the drawing do not have a fill of colour.

I am not suprised because, when I went through the process with the plain circles a dialog box popped up asking whether "I want to set all objects already created to take on the new attributes" I ticked yes and bingo all the circles became coloured.

But when I tried the same thing with all the plants placed through the place plant tool this dialog box never came up.

To answer your question Robert, yes I had ticked

"Use at Creation" box checked for both the plant symbol types.

So what the hell is going wrong ?

Can I in fact achieve what I asking for which is :

Can I change dozens and dozens of plants on a drawing (which are all in the same class by the way) from plants with no fill to all with coloured fill in one hit through editing the class ?

It worked for the simple circles first attempt.

Why does it not work for the plants inserted in the drawing using the "place plant tool"

Thanks Viper.

Searching the data base, does this have something to do with my problem :

ie What should "None" class be set to ?

Are not plant symbols made up of 2 classes , one being "none" and one being the class you put the symbols in, if so is "none" class the fill or is it the line work ?

http://techboard.nemetschek.net/cgi/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000150

Quote:

"THAT was it. Things work now.

Out of curiosity, what other problems does have the none class's "use at creation" box checked create? I had never heard not to do so."

"There's a minor bug in Setup in 10.0 that causes this flag to be set on. It causes plug-in objects (such as roads) to be non-colorable. I should have thought of this before (note to self: slap self in forehead.) "

Note:

I checked the "None" class in the drawing and "use at creation" box was not checked.

Also I have no problem filling these troublesome plants with colour via the attributes pallette, but I can not get them too take on colour all in one hit via editing the class.

I am sure it is something stupid I have done but what on earth is it.

[ 08-08-2004, 10:12 AM: Message edited by: Viper x ]

[Robert Anderson 129]

Viper, I've looked into this further. It looks like a bug. Here's the way to accomplish what you want:

Use the "Custom selection" command to create a script to select only the plants in one of your classes. (Save this script for re-use.)

When the plants are selected, simply give them the fill/color you want from the Attribute palette.

Turn off "Use at Creation" on all classes.

[Viper x 1]

It is a bug

I was beginning to convince myself it was just me.

Viper

[Marietta 0]

HI

What I have dome in the past is create plant symbols with black and white class, colour class and shadow class. When I want to show only black & white, I save the view with that class active and the others invisible. When I want the coloured plan, I save the view with the colour and/or shadow active and the black & white invisible. I used this prior to landmark coming out. Can we do this with the current symbols associated with the plant catalogue? This makes rendering in colour very easy and you only have to create and choose the colour once when selecting which symbol to use.

Marietta

[Jonathan Pickup 285]

this may not be what you were talkig about but have you tied to use gradients as colours. I noticed that you can change the plan to b/w only and gradiens still show their colours