Sheet Layer Viewport > Advanced Properties > Black and White Only doesn't make everything black and white; other related bugs

[mdrohn]

I'm trying to make everything shown in a sheet layer viewport appear black and white (ideally grayscale), but I can't get it to work.

 

My typical workflow starts from imported PDFs of set construction floor plans, which I use as the bottom layer for lighting plots.  The PDF's are created by another department and often contain a lot of color coding which is useful for their intended purpose, but undesirable for mine.  What I want is to make the PDFs display in grayscale so the information is retained, but doesn't compete with the lighting plot colors.

It would be great if I could set the PDF to display in grayscale as an option in the OIP, but I will settle for being able to do so within a viewport on a sheet layer.  Intuitively, I expected the "Black and White Only" setting in the viewport advanced properties to do just that, make the viewport black and white only, but it doesn't work on PDFs (or at all on Shaded or Renderworks renders; see attached demonstration file and video).

What is strange, and makes me think a bug may be in play, is that with B&W Only checked, PDFs shown in a sheet layer viewport are in fact displayed in grayscale while the screen is being panned or zoomed.  As soon as the screen view comes to rest however, the PDFs return to displaying in color.  When B&W Only isn't checked, PDFs are shown in color during screen view movement.  So it seems clear that setting does in fact toggle whether it is displayed in color or b&w; unfortunately not in a way that can be constructively used.  The attached video shows this dynamic in action. 
 
Is this WAD (which would seem very strange), a bug, or am I missing some other setting somewhere?

While experimenting with this issue, I also noticed a few other odd behaviors:

- Wireframe renders of text objects do not obey the "Adjust Flipped Text" setting -- but similarly to the above, they do obey it while the screen view is changing, then return to the un-adjusted flip.
- Viewports also show the same "only while the view is changing" display behavior if Document Preferences > Black and White Only is enabled.  There are some further inconsistent and unintuitive results in how sheet layer viewports show BW or color in various render styles when this setting is enabled.
- Viewports do not consistently flag for update when BW settings are toggled.
- Text object did not restore its pen color when Document-level B&W is toggled, and a viewport which shows the object is updated to show the change from color to b&w (as  loosely demonstrated in the video).  
 

viewport bw.vwx

Edited March 19, 2022 by mdrohn

[mdrohn]

FWIW these bugs are mostly unchanged in SP3, except perhaps the one regarding text object color on the design layer not being restored after toggling BW display mode (this one appears fixed)

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by mdrohn

[mdrohn]

These bugs are still active in SP5, including the one referenced in my previous post that I thought was fixed

[AlanW]

@mdrohnHi, Not sure if this is what you want?? I made the coloured objects each by class otherwise you cant change them in viewport.

Have to make a seperate class of all the items you want to change in a viewport, ie red, blue green etc. You can change the entire design layer to any colour you want see the viewport and by colours. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd9JXJzI9AY

 The pdf is harder but i used the image adjust in the viewport to make it black and white.

 

HTH

viewport bw.vwx

[Ema Gia]

Hi, 

I need the exact opposite.. all layer black and white except one.. anyone knows how to set this? thank you!

[Pat Stanford]

Do you need this while working on Design Layers? Or would a Viewport on a Sheet Layer be acceptable?

[Ema Gia]

Hi Pat, 

Viewport on a sheet layer is what I need. Thank you!

[Pat Stanford]

Then Layer Overrides are exactly what you want.

 

Select the Viewport in the Object Info Pallette and click the Layers... button

In the Viewport Layer Properties dialog box click in the 6th column (Layer Colors) to set all the Layers you want to be Black and White to Use Layer Colors. You can select multiple layers at the same time by holding down the Command key as you click on each one to do a discontinuous selection, or holding down the Shift key to select a range of layers. Click the Edit... button.

In the Edit Viewport Design Layers dialog box, click the Colors... button.

In the Color Defaults for Layers dialog box pick the Fill and Pen options (should default to standard black/white) and click OK.

Close the dialog boxes and the layers you had selected should be in Black and White and the the layers you did not select should show in their original colors.

 

HTH. Ask again if you need more detail.

 

 

 

 

[Ema Gia]

great! thank you so much for your help!