CTB to STB

I think I finally figured out the convertpstyles and it has led me to wonder
why convert at all.
We are consulting engineers and use stb. We get drawings from Architects who
are exclusively ctb and attach their drawings as xrefs to our stb drawings
and assign the plot styles that we want to the xrefs, usually always
greyscaled.

Having figured out how to convert a ctb to stb and then convert the drawing
to stb using the (converted ctb ) stb I can now plot the drawing with the
correct lineweights. However, I cannot convert the dwg to stb without the
original ctb and if I have the original ctb, I can plot the drawing anyway
with the correct linewieghts.

Assuming that we share the same drawings with someone using ctb, we edit,
sent to them, they edit, send to us, we edit, send to them and so on, we
would have to only use a stb that was converted from their ctb. If we
started with our own stb befor sharing the dwgs, the convertpstyles using
our stb would not assign the correct plot style names to the right layers in
the converted ctb drawing. We would still have to do it manually.

Having said all this, what is the purpose of having the ability of
converting a ctb drawing to stb in the first place?

Dave Alexander

 

I guess that we're blind then- no one has enlightened us as to stb over ctb.
My coworkers and I were just discussing this the other day, and we couldn't
come up with a good reason to switch. Any takers?

 

Thanks Dean. I'll check it out.

 

A couple of things that come to mind off the top are being able to change
the plot style for a layer without being tied to its color, applying plot
styles to ctb xrefs but you have to manually or by lisp assign plot styles
to layers.

Dave Alexander

 

One thing I do not understand is how some people can say that they have
fewer layers using stb the with ctb.

How do you separate objects such as a door from a wall without putting them
on different layers?

Does someone have a good set of stb files together with a good set of
architectural layers they can show as an example so that I can see the
difference?

I know that ADT 2004 is now stb by default, but I haven't had a real chance
to use it yet, so am still using ctb files.

And also use regular AutoCAD so have not had a need that I am aware of to
switch over to stb. Maybe ignorance IS bliss?

Jack Talsky

 

When ctb and stb first was introduced, I experienced a lot of civil drawing
coming into our client's engineering department using the stb format. When
the draftsmen at the client office attempted to select their office standard
for plotting, they could not find the ctb files at all.

Even though the profile in Options still showed the ctb file as the default,
the ctb files were not available.

The remedy at that time was to wblock out the drawing, including paperspace,
and create a new drawing with ctb as its default.

Autodesk then created the Convertpstyles as an interim solution. This was
available at the time as a download from Autodesk with AutoCAD 2000. Either
with 2000i or 2002, ConvertPstyles become part of the software.

That is my "stab" at an answer.

Jack Talsky

snip> Having said all this, what is the purpose of having the ability of

 

Hey Jack,

Entities have a plot style property the same as a color property when
using stb.

The big difference between the stb and ctb is that you get to name the
plot style what you want and are not stuck with 255 colors. All of the
settings you assign to a color you still assign to a plot style and they
are exactly or can be exactly the same. The other difference is that if
you only use 5 or 6 different line weights, then you would only have 5
or 6 named plot styles. When we changed from ctb to stb we used color
numbers (names) as plot style names. As we use the layer colors as a
visual reference for line weight, it was very easy to adjust to the stb.

I hadn't heard this. I wonder what the plot style names are.


Dave Alexander