CAD Manager's Guidebook
Explaining the role of the CAD manager, this guide details how to create and institute your own CAD standards, policies, and procedures and offers tips and suggestions for maximizing CAD efficiency.
TABLE OF CONTENTS CAD Manager's Guidebook
Chapter 4: Assigning Colors
OVERVIEW
CHAPTER SUMMARY
This chapter describes how to use colors in CAD drawings. It includes approaches to creating a standardized color scheme, and describes several industry color standards.
All CAD packages give you the freedom to use many colors in a drawing. Whereas CAD systems of yesteryear limited you to 255 or even just fifteen colors, today's CAD systems support the 16.7 million colors. That leaves new CAD users in a quandary: What color coding system? Why use colors at all?
COLORS
Why use color in a CAD drawing? Color was rarely used in manual drafting, so you may question the thought of using color in an electronic drawing. Feel free to do so. Since the output from a CAD system is, in most cases, a black-white plot, you may not want to use color.
The Case for Color
CAD programs use color for two purposes: (1) operator cues, and (2) controlling the plotter.
When a drawing contains colored elements, the colors provide cues to the operator, making them more efficient. It's easier to pick out a blue water pipe from a sea of red structural members than when pipes and steel beams are both drawn in black.
While the structural engineering firm decided against a color display, they still need to use color in drawings even if the colors are not displayed or plotted. That's because all CAD systems use color to control the plotter's pens.
When it comes time to plot the drawing, the CAD program asks...
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