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OVERLAPPING FILLS

PostPosted: Thu Nov 23, 2017 8:43 am
by Nick Pyner
I think I have a little tip here....
I have been tearing my hair out for several days trying to get one fill to partially overlap another. I don't think this would often happen in normal practice and, if it did and was a problem, you would probably fix it by simply getting rid of the overlap, without bothering to wonder what the hell is going on. This exercise is all to do with David Henderson's new shadow macro, which uses solid fills. In order to manage things, one would expect to have each shadow on its own layer.

The problem comes with printing them in the desired manner, showing the differences in shadows between the existing and new situation. Essentially what is needed is to print the old shadow over the new. In my case it is simply a less dense fill over a dense one, with some of the dense one showing.

I believe the rule of the game is this: LAYERS TRUMP PEN TABLES

If the fills are on individual layers, no amount of fiddling with pens and colours will fix the problem. The solution is to put the fills in layer order, and stay away from the pen table altogether. Because of this you can get what you want by accident. I am pretty sure I initially got what I wanted by putting the shadow fill in the wrong layer, and then had strife trying to repeat it. In the meantime David was constantly upgrading the shadow macro, and I reckoned the problem was with him.

Re: OVERLAPPING FILLS

PostPosted: Thu Nov 23, 2017 2:49 pm
by dhs
Glad you got it sorted Nick.
In my original investigation of your problem I had everything on the same layer and the Pen Table seemed to be the way to go....
I did not expect that layer was a factor, so it is good that you have managed to sort that it out.

Re: OVERLAPPING FILLS

PostPosted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 11:28 am
by artmanvt2000
Nick,

Here is an idea to try. Why not convert the existing shading as a simple line hatch? One line hatches would show through a solid bitmap fill without any work. The line hatch may also show better for the client. They might be able to see a better difference between the new and existing if they were a different "hatch" types.

Re: OVERLAPPING FILLS

PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:02 pm
by Nick Pyner
artmanvt2000 wrote:Nick,Here is an idea to try. Why not convert the existing shading as a simple line hatch?


I don't think that will fly here. The essential problem is to make overlapping fills look like they aren't. Hatches will just make a bad situation worse.

As I said, I don't think this is a normal DataCad situation. I just point out the rule for those who may encounter this.