Is it possible to adapt the deafult color index ?

Peter Hanft

Hi there, I'm brooding over a problem with colors. Maybe someone has a hint for me. Where can I change the default color assignment Index <-> Color ?
I'm exporting a test-DWG from an extern CAD-application, 1 simple line element in it, layer number 190, color index 111.
In the extern application the color index 111 is a blue tone (this color-table has also numbers from 0-255).
Now when I open the DWG in Bricscad the line (layer 190, color index 111) comes in a green tone, because the color index 111 in Bricscad is set to this green tone by default. And this is exactly what I want to control from outside, before opening the DWG in Bricscad, give the indices the same colors as in the extern app (111 -> blue).
Thanks and a good day to you all, Peter from Munich, Germany

Jason Bourhill

Hi Peter,

To my knowledge the colour tables are fixed, it is not possible to change them. Options depend on what you are trying to achieve:

• Ideally configure the application that your exporting from so that it maps to the correct colours for BricsCAD. Many CAD applications include this type of facility.
• If the all the objects on the drawing have their colour set to bylayer, then you could use a simple script to update the layer colour settings.
• An alternative to item above. You could set up a drawing with all the layers set to the correct colours, and if common blocks are involved you could also correct these (you would save this drawing as a template). You would then _INSERT the drawing you want to import, then explode. Because the layers and blocks are already defined in the target drawing, they will automatically take on these properties on insertion.
  
• If the drawing contains blocks with explicit colour settings, then you probably want to investigate creating a routine to update. Roy Gebbinck created a fairly similar routine to this for dealing with truecolour https://forum.bricsys.com/discussion/11733

Best regards,

Jason Bourhill

CAD Concepts

Knut Hohenberg

I never understood why Autodesk stuck to a fixed palette.
I think there is a clear use case for user definable palettes:
If several people in an office work simultaneously on a set of drawings, and some of them have a light graphics area background configured while others prefer a dark one, not all can have an ergonomically satisfying display (unless you use a script that converts colors each time a drawing is opened or saved, but that seems quite a clumsy solution).
Maybe worth a feature request.