Mix color and grayshade plotting (example: existing utilities in color)

Last updated: 2021-03-17

This topic explains how to set existing utilities in an XREF to plot in color. The tool used is in the WisDOT Civil 3D 2018 customizations and beyond. This process can be used to plot any mix of color and grayshade based on layers.

Info:

As a reminder, all grayshade or all color plotting is achieved by setting the plot table in Page Setup.

  • wisdot-standard.ctb = all grayshade plotting
  • wisdot-color.ctb = all color plotting

This can be done manually

  1. Right-click layout tab > Page Setup Manager... > Modify... > Plot style table

Or by applying a page setup

  1. WisDOT Sheets tab > Plot Configuration panel > Page Setups > Click on desired page setup to add it to the DWG.
  2. Set it individually in Page Setup Manager or in batch mode with Multi-Page Setup

  1. To save the existing layer state if you want to easily return to it: Home tab > Layers panel > Layers dropdown > Layer State dropdown > New Layer State...

    In Civil 3D 2018 and beyond, if you are working with a utility file that you have XREF'd into a file, do the following:

  2. Confirm that wisdot_standard.ctb is the active plot style table. This table prints everything grayshade that is using an index color. Layers/objects that have True Color assigned to them will print in color.
  3. WisDOT <Any> tab > Manage panel > Layers dropdown > Convert Layer Colors
    1. Filters: Utilities Existing-xref
    2. Select All
    3. Convert Color Definition: Index Color to True Color
    4. Layers > Selected Layers: checked
    5. Apply
    6. Home tab > Layers panel > Layers dropdown > Layer State dropdown > New Layer State... to save this layer state.

This process can be applied for any layer groups or any manual selection set of layers for a DWG and it's XREFs.

An xref layer state can be reset to the current layer state of the DWG with Layers and their properties