Topic: Viewports?

[danallen]

The NCS also mentions but not require to make all the objects outside the match lines a lighter color or shade of grey.

Besides laying a vewport on top of one viewport with the layer's color overridden I can't think of way to do that without messing the actual objects in the drawing.

It just notes "This overlapped portion may be lightly shaded to avoid duplication during cost estimating", which could be interpreted to be shaded over, ala sticky back/letratone or a light gray hatch pattern. We often use such shading to note work not in contract.  I agree to screen the line work would be a PITA. One method would be to use two separate xrefs of the same model/work file, but with different block names. Then the layering of each could allow for separate line screening, then use xclipping to control which is displayed. (pain/grimace)

Dan

[Jeff H]

Good ideas Dan
Thanks

[JCTER]

You could always create a hatch in paperspace with ANSI31 or something, in grey.  Or if "paperspace plots last" is set, maybe the hatch would be -behind- the objects, and as such you could use a solid or densely-dotted hatch to create the visual difference, and shade the white-space instead of shading the linework?

Otherwise, I'm with El Jefe, my first impression is that I'd have to create a rectangular-donut viewport (since you can do a vpclip or create a vport from a closed polyline**), override the layer color of everything to something grey on the color table, then have a donut-hole-rectangle viewport for the regular view with no overrides.

** You might have to create the viewport not as a true donut, but more like the outlines of your thumb and forefinger as they touch tips.  Sort of the outline of the letter "U" if you bent the tops to meet.

[alanjt]

** You might have to create the viewport not as a true donut, but more like the outlines of your thumb and forefinger as they touch tips.  Sort of the outline of the letter "U" if you bent the tops to meet.

If you are referring to needing more than 2 vertices, just create the 'circle' from three arcs, converted to an LWPolyline.

[JCTER]

** You might have to create the viewport not as a true donut, but more like the outlines of your thumb and forefinger as they touch tips.  Sort of the outline of the letter "U" if you bent the tops to meet.

If you are referring to needing more than 2 vertices, just create the 'circle' from three arcs, converted to an LWPolyline.

Yea but I was talking more about creating a hollow circle.  Like a donut.

[alanjt]

** You might have to create the viewport not as a true donut, but more like the outlines of your thumb and forefinger as they touch tips.  Sort of the outline of the letter "U" if you bent the tops to meet.

If you are referring to needing more than 2 vertices, just create the 'circle' from three arcs, converted to an LWPolyline.

Yea but I was talking more about creating a hollow circle.  Like a donut.

What about something like this?

[JCTER]

** You might have to create the viewport not as a true donut, but more like the outlines of your thumb and forefinger as they touch tips.  Sort of the outline of the letter "U" if you bent the tops to meet.

If you are referring to needing more than 2 vertices, just create the 'circle' from three arcs, converted to an LWPolyline.

Yea but I was talking more about creating a hollow circle.  Like a donut.

What about something like this?

Yea, that's exactly it.

Hmph.  For some reason I thought Autocad didn't let you have a viewport made up of more than one polyline... even after vpclip... Looks like I'm wrong. 

[alanjt]

** You might have to create the viewport not as a true donut, but more like the outlines of your thumb and forefinger as they touch tips.  Sort of the outline of the letter "U" if you bent the tops to meet.

If you are referring to needing more than 2 vertices, just create the 'circle' from three arcs, converted to an LWPolyline.

Yea but I was talking more about creating a hollow circle.  Like a donut.

What about something like this?

Yea, that's exactly it.

Hmph.  For some reason I thought Autocad didn't let you have a viewport made up of more than one polyline... even after vpclip... Looks like I'm wrong. 

It won't. That's just one polyline that overlaps itself when going from the larger 'circle' to the smaller 'circle'.

[JCTER]

** You might have to create the viewport not as a true donut, but more like the outlines of your thumb and forefinger as they touch tips.  Sort of the outline of the letter "U" if you bent the tops to meet.

If you are referring to needing more than 2 vertices, just create the 'circle' from three arcs, converted to an LWPolyline.

Yea but I was talking more about creating a hollow circle.  Like a donut.

What about something like this?

Yea, that's exactly it.

Hmph.  For some reason I thought Autocad didn't let you have a viewport made up of more than one polyline... even after vpclip... Looks like I'm wrong. 

It won't. That's just one polyline that overlaps itself when going from the larger 'circle' to the smaller 'circle'.

OH!  Duh.  Yea, I missed that segment.  That's exactly what I was talking about really.  That you have to create one polyline that creates a donut, whether it's a rectangle or a circle or whatever.  A "hollow" viewport.

That was what I was trying to explain about how to do the 'shaded' part outside a matchline.  That way you have one viewport where you could just select all layers and quickly change them to a VP-override color of (in our case, color#253) a greyed-out color on your color table.

[alanjt]

** You might have to create the viewport not as a true donut, but more like the outlines of your thumb and forefinger as they touch tips.  Sort of the outline of the letter "U" if you bent the tops to meet.

If you are referring to needing more than 2 vertices, just create the 'circle' from three arcs, converted to an LWPolyline.

Yea but I was talking more about creating a hollow circle.  Like a donut.

What about something like this?

Yea, that's exactly it.

Hmph.  For some reason I thought Autocad didn't let you have a viewport made up of more than one polyline... even after vpclip... Looks like I'm wrong. 

It won't. That's just one polyline that overlaps itself when going from the larger 'circle' to the smaller 'circle'.

OH!  Duh.  Yea, I missed that segment.  That's exactly what I was talking about really.  That you have to create one polyline that creates a donut, whether it's a rectangle or a circle or whatever.  A "hollow" viewport.

That was what I was trying to explain about how to do the 'shaded' part outside a matchline.  That way you have one viewport where you could just select all layers and quickly change them to a VP-override color of (in our case, color#253) a greyed-out color on your color table.

Right on. Yeah, I will use this method to hack out a small square area of a viewport, then create a secondary viewport at a different scale, with color overrides.