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CAD Forums => CAD General => Topic started by: nobody on November 04, 2017, 05:24:30 PM

Title: Need input from people experienced with STB
Post by: nobody on November 04, 2017, 05:24:30 PM
It seems to me STB gives more control to the user over how they want their lineweights / plots to appear, being able to manipulate each one however they want. Am I correct? 
Title: Re: Need input from people experienced with STB
Post by: Rob... on November 05, 2017, 07:22:33 AM
Never been exposed to them in my workflows. I'm surprised that I've only come across files that used them a few times over the years. IMHO, tieing colors to lineweights is not natural. It makes a lot of sense to associate layers directly to them. Plus, it frees up colors to be used for something other than lineweights.
Title: Re: Need input from people experienced with STB
Post by: nobody on November 05, 2017, 01:39:33 PM
Lot of articles and videos say the same thing. I learned ctb in school and it clicked instantly though. Im not sure thay i like the idea of users choosing a style for every single layer though...seems like a good way to waist time and blame it on trying make things look good XD still.. im stuck having to use it and trying to learn what i can
Title: Re: Need input from people experienced with STB
Post by: CAB on November 05, 2017, 11:54:29 PM
Quote
i like the idea of users choosing a style for every single layer though
You choose a color for every layer!

I've been using STB for decade plus and don't see why you would use CTB.
You're not bound up by color, make you layer what ever color you like and over ride color.
All line weights are controlled by the plot style name. It just makes more sense to me to work that way.
IMO CTB is old school.  Funny coming from a 69 year old. :)
Title: Re: Need input from people experienced with STB
Post by: nobody on November 06, 2017, 03:39:19 AM
Quote
i like the idea of users choosing a style for every single layer though
You choose a color for every layer!

I've been using STB for decade plus and don't see why you would use CTB.
You're not bound up by color, make you layer what ever color you like and over ride color.
All line weights are controlled by the plot style name. It just makes more sense to me to work that way.
IMO CTB is old school.  Funny coming from a 69 year old. :)

Good point. I think CTB strength is it's obvious when a lineweight is wrong because the color blares at a person on the screen.  With STB, I can go into an STB drawing and totally trash it (randomize styles / colors / etc), and you likely won't know anything is wrong until you plot XD Additionally, I think CTB forces users to be more organized...e.g., layers always the same color, etc. Where, like you say, STB it doesn't matter.  Users go free for all based on how they think things should look personally...waisting a bunch of time on non-sense.  Of course, that can still be controlled.
Title: Re: Need input from people experienced with STB
Post by: ChrisCarlson on November 06, 2017, 08:58:15 AM
We tried to switch to an STB but the roll out did not happen very smoothly. Being able to plot by style regardless of color is nice but from a review standpoint it's easier for us to confirm stuff is colored correctly.
Title: Re: Need input from people experienced with STB
Post by: MSTG007 on November 06, 2017, 09:18:03 AM
I agree with Master_Shake... We were contemplating using the STB. It is very powerful. We have users who like to change their default CAD Background Colors. Which is fine, but with some colors its still hard to see. But the organization and color thing comes back. Users like all the drawings to look the same. If color 1 is this, then it better be that or it will not look like our plot standards... just a thought.
Title: Re: Need input from people experienced with STB
Post by: tedg on November 06, 2017, 09:38:02 AM
I've used STB when I'v had to, per a cad standard, but I'm not a fan of it.
I'm used to CTB, where you typically assign lineweights to colors.


However, I'm a big fan of "NCS 4.0 CTB" (and probably 5.0?) where color is NOT an issue, it assigns black to everything uses object or layer line weights, and the gray scales 150-155 are actual colors.
Maybe that is similar to how STB is supposed to work I don't know, I just understand it better.


The nice thing about that is you can have one template (dwt) that has colors and line weights assigned to layers, so you could use (for example) NCS 3.1 ctb and NCS 4.0 and get the same results with out changing anything.
Title: Re: Need input from people experienced with STB
Post by: dgorsman on November 06, 2017, 10:24:38 AM
You don't need to assign a different style to every layer; you could have "Thin" assigned to multiple layers which are supposed to be plotted with thin line weights.

Just like color based, it shouldn't be left to the user for the most part - automation should select this so the user is focused on the design, not fine tuning the settings.

It's easier to "bulk set" values with CTB.  Its a lot easier for an STB-based drawing to end up with parts printed in color (or a B/W printer approximation) due to missing style name, "Normal" style, and so on.  And yes, B/W printing is still the most common.

STB printing can get funky and frustrating when dealing with XREFs.

It's easier to print "blind" with CTB than STB.  If the drawing has a bunch of unknown color settings you just use a CTB file with all colors set to plot at a medium line weight.  If a drawing has a bunch of miscellaneous plot styles (my favorites are "Style_1, Style_2, etc." and "Fred, ClientName, etc.") you need to create a specific STB with those named styles.
Title: Re: Need input from people experienced with STB
Post by: roy_043 on November 08, 2017, 05:22:28 AM
Perhaps interesting (article in English):
http://ww3.cad.de/foren/ubb/uploads/marc.scherer/ProStb.pdf