Hi all! I want to reach out early on this feature change to Site Color and Color Render for hatches in the AutoCAD plugin that we’re strongly considering going ahead with, to get your input and feedback.
The Change:
Color Render will stop creating a duplicate hatch. Color Render will instead use the Background color native ACAD property in the Properties palette.
Pros:
Cons:
Why do we want to do this?
From our team’s perspective, the benefits of having gradients as an option no where near outweigh the issues caused by supporting gradients.
So this is our fair warning post that we’re moving towards this, and your opportunity to help us with this. Please reply with your thoughts. Maybe you agree and support this decision or let us know if we’ve missed any important reasons to keep gradients (or more reasons to let them go).
Edit:
To respond to common feedback: "Keep the existing hatches and hatch names."
- That's absolutely the plan. Those pattern names will remain the same. Our only plans are to add to that library of patterns. This is only regarding the solid fill or gradient hatch that gets created during color render to be a background color instead of a separate hatch object.
The Change:
Color Render will stop creating a duplicate hatch. Color Render will instead use the Background color native ACAD property in the Properties palette.
Pros:
- No more double hatches - groundcovers, shrub areas and RefNote areas will be easier to manipulate with color render turned on, since it’s just one hatch now.
- It will be significantly faster to turn on color render. Especially once we couple this with another big change we planning to complete in 2026 to move the color hatches into the regular plant symbols and give the ability to choose any color for trees and shrubs.
- No more drawing extra hatches, no more swapping out blocks. Even on a large plan the color render tool should turn on in a quarter of the time or faster. - Slightly smaller file size and slight file performance speed improvement since there’s now half the hatches.
- I’m attaching a simple case study DWG with over 400 hatches with PDFs to see the file size differences and the performance. Fair warning, it’s still a bit laggy with so many hatches. - We will be able to implement the same options and result in other programs like Revit, SketchUp and Rhino.
- Improved technical support, reducing our ticket load.
- Many offices have submitted tickets to us where the inclusion of gradients resulted in them or their colleagues not being able to plot their plan. So why are we supporting this feature? - Easier for our developers to maintain the Site Color and Color render features for all of our plugins.
- It will be the same features from plugin to plugin, simplifying development in the other platforms and debugging.
- We already removed gradients from the tree and shrub color blocks 10 years ago (Update 11.42, June 19, 2015) due to the issues they caused.
- This has significantly delayed new features in the past.
- We will still provide limited legacy support for existing gradients for 1 or 2 years: a plant or RefNote area that’s already assigned to a gradient will continue to render that gradient, but obviously not as a background color. You won’t be able to assign plants to gradients anymore, and any gradients in existing color wheel will be either stripped out or reverted to color 1 of the gradient. After 1-2 years we will need to also remove this legacy support, though.
Cons:
- No more gradients (that’s the only con).
- Gradients are not supported in AutoCAD’s native hatch background color feature, nor are you able to apply a gradient to anything except a solid hatch.
- They have not and are not adding gradient support to anything else, nor are they improving it.
- Color books also do not allow selecting a saved gradient.
- It’s a narrow feature with many performance and other issues.
- Gradients are not supported in SketchUp nor Revit.
- This has already caused issues with transferring a plan to Revit for some users, and extra work to reassign those colors to get color render to work in Revit.
- However, we’ve been wanting to pull gradient support for more reasons than this:
- Gradients, even on just a few hatches, adds a large file size to a PDF plot, requiring extra steps to rasterize the PDF.
- Controversial opinion? A plan with gradients is arguably a dated look.
- Adding gradients can still be achieved with our documented workflow to bring color render into photoshop, where you’d need to go anyway to rasterize the PDF.
Why do we want to do this?
- Take advantage of the hatch background color feature.
- Vastly simplify the Site Color and Color Render tools for the user, but also for our developers as we work to expand these tools on all platforms.
- Make the Color Render and Site Color experience the same in AutoCAD, Revit, SketchUp and Rhino.
- We want to prioritize the same functionality and look and feel of all of our tools across all of our supported platforms.
- Stop supporting gradients that end up resulting in support tickets blaming Land F/X of causing high PDF file sizes.
From our team’s perspective, the benefits of having gradients as an option no where near outweigh the issues caused by supporting gradients.
So this is our fair warning post that we’re moving towards this, and your opportunity to help us with this. Please reply with your thoughts. Maybe you agree and support this decision or let us know if we’ve missed any important reasons to keep gradients (or more reasons to let them go).
Edit:
To respond to common feedback: "Keep the existing hatches and hatch names."
- That's absolutely the plan. Those pattern names will remain the same. Our only plans are to add to that library of patterns. This is only regarding the solid fill or gradient hatch that gets created during color render to be a background color instead of a separate hatch object.
Amanda Marin
set the type of the post as
Task — 1 month ago
Forrestt Williams
featured this post — 1 month ago
I do use the gradient hatches especially when I'm rendering a pool or for groups of perennials. When we're doing a quick plan, we use Land F/X to add color. When we are spending more time on a plan, we would use LandF/X to render the plants and Photoshop to render the rest of the site.
However, I understand the reasons you outlined for removing the gradient. I would miss it, but probably not terribly.
However, I understand the reasons you outlined for removing the gradient. I would miss it, but probably not terribly.
- Amanda Marin
- 1 month ago
- #140
A workaround would be that you could still use the Site Color tool to place a hatch, which would put it on a standardized layer. Then use the GRADIENT command in the commandline and select the already placed pool hatch and apply your pool gradient.
So for a few gradients, still doable and the Land F/X Site Color tool will still make the process a little faster with best CAD practices.
So for a few gradients, still doable and the Land F/X Site Color tool will still make the process a little faster with best CAD practices.
There are no comments made for this post yet
Provided there isn't a requirement to use the solid fills if we do not want to, this would make things easier.
Also, if there is some forethought into the names of the hatches and not abandoning the existing hatches for new ones again. The last time you updated all the hatches a couple years back it created a problem where old plans that used the previous hatches no longer worked correctly during editing because those old hatches no longer had a pattern to reference. So they broke which made making a simple edit to a couple of planting beds much more complicated to have to update every hatch that broke during the edit.
So as long as something like that doesn't happen again, this sounds like a wonderful change. Being able to color code trees and such for more than a pretty picture would be very helpful. Red filled trees mean one kind of code required tree, blue another, etc. On municipal projects and even very large private one's that would be super helpful.
Also, if there is some forethought into the names of the hatches and not abandoning the existing hatches for new ones again. The last time you updated all the hatches a couple years back it created a problem where old plans that used the previous hatches no longer worked correctly during editing because those old hatches no longer had a pattern to reference. So they broke which made making a simple edit to a couple of planting beds much more complicated to have to update every hatch that broke during the edit.
So as long as something like that doesn't happen again, this sounds like a wonderful change. Being able to color code trees and such for more than a pretty picture would be very helpful. Red filled trees mean one kind of code required tree, blue another, etc. On municipal projects and even very large private one's that would be super helpful.
- Amanda Marin
- 1 month ago
- #139
Yes, we certainly learned a lot from the hatch name change. Making more posts like this was one of those lessons! Sorry that affected you, but I really appreciate your patience through it and giving feedback on this.
We are planning it to be as seamless as possible, and definitely no new hatch names.
I do have one issue where the rotation isn't working for hatches in Revit which will need new pat files to recreate the rotations of the same patterns, but we're trying to isolate that fix to Revit and not impact ACAD for this reason.
Solid fills (or colors being set to a hatch) would not be a requirement in the RefNote or Plant Data, and would only be applied if colour render is turned on. Just like right now.
We are planning it to be as seamless as possible, and definitely no new hatch names.
I do have one issue where the rotation isn't working for hatches in Revit which will need new pat files to recreate the rotations of the same patterns, but we're trying to isolate that fix to Revit and not impact ACAD for this reason.
Solid fills (or colors being set to a hatch) would not be a requirement in the RefNote or Plant Data, and would only be applied if colour render is turned on. Just like right now.
There are no comments made for this post yet
I personally do not use gradients so that is not an issue for me. More variety of colors for the refnotes would be great. Also, still struggling with HATCHTOBACK which sometimes works and sometimes does not. I feel like the color render should always be at the back of the rest of the drawing. Thanks for your hard work!
All for it except retain functionality of existing patterned hatches as mentioned already. Our projects can span 5+ years and we need to be able to edit without losing the original hatch (not gradients or solids but patterned for CD's). In our opinion, if you're needing more than a solid color then it needs to be exported to an image rendering program such as the Adobe Suite. Thanks for asking for input
We find that the color render feature on our larger plans gunks them up and sometimes causes fatal errors. I'm a huge fan of simplifying the process and making it faster and easier on the processor! Let's end the double hatch!
- Amanda Marin
- 1 month ago
- #136
Aaron, would you be able to send in an example plan where color render is strongly negatively affecting the performance in a ticket?
It would be great for me to test any improvements we make to make sure it's actually improving this case.
How to Submit a Technical Support Ticket - https://www.landfx.com/kb/admin-issues/info/125-submit-ticket.html
It would be great for me to test any improvements we make to make sure it's actually improving this case.
How to Submit a Technical Support Ticket - https://www.landfx.com/kb/admin-issues/info/125-submit-ticket.html
There are no comments made for this post yet
Working in a multidisciplinary office that uses Civil3D, we've had issues with utilizing the Background property because it doesn't work well with Lines Merge plotting, although we have to adjust plot settings to not Lines Merge for LandFX color plots anyway! Often times (if there's a Background mask in a label, for instance) it will plot as a black box.
Very supportive of removing double hatches, which is a pain. We also don't use gradients, so that's not a concern.
Very supportive of removing double hatches, which is a pain. We also don't use gradients, so that's not a concern.
To respond to common feedback: "Keep the existing hatches and hatch names."
That's absolutely the plan. Those pattern names will remain the same. Our only plans are to add to that library of patterns.
-Amanda
Also, I'm blown away by all the responses already. Thank you all so much for giving your valuable input!
That's absolutely the plan. Those pattern names will remain the same. Our only plans are to add to that library of patterns.
-Amanda
Also, I'm blown away by all the responses already. Thank you all so much for giving your valuable input!
We do not utilize gradients in our ACAD work—with the sole exception of stipple hatching for lawns. We find the stipple hatch to be an essential tool in our workflow and would strongly advocate for its retention.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide client feedback!"
Thank you for the opportunity to provide client feedback!"
Our office regularly uses gradients for adding a bit of style and color pop to our presentation drawings, so keeping them would be a great thing for us.
But also, as many others have said there are certain hatches that do the job just as well so it may just have to be an artistic pivot.
Overall I do believe the benefits of the hatch update greatly outweighs the negatives, we will be sad to see the gradients go though.
But also, as many others have said there are certain hatches that do the job just as well so it may just have to be an artistic pivot.
Overall I do believe the benefits of the hatch update greatly outweighs the negatives, we will be sad to see the gradients go though.
We use the gradient fills all the time so that the landscape areas have some depth and softness to them in contrast to the buildings, hardscape elements and or land use colors. It is a shame you cannot figure it out. I will be sad to see them go.
As for the strange double hatching, yes please. Glad to hear that is going to be corrected.
As for the strange double hatching, yes please. Glad to hear that is going to be corrected.
We use gradient hatches on the ground plane to add a little bit of variety and depth to what might otherwise be a very flat plan. For serious rendering, we export to photoshop, but for something quick, it's a nice tool to have. I will be sad to see them go but it won't affect critical workflows. Adding more color variety to the hatches would help offset the loss.
Great idea! We've had to wrestle with bloated PDFs for years and anything that helps mitigate that issue without having to purchase a third-party solution is appreciated. For us, color is a temporary expression used to sell or present an initial idea in Schematic Design or early DD, so the loss of gradients, as well as the other cons doesn't seem to outweigh the pros. The only suggestion I may have is to provide the ability to control the transparency of the color without dimming the hatch linework. Keep up the good work.
- Amanda Marin
- 1 month ago
- #137
Zeek, could you please elaborate on your request? Is there a scenario where you need to see other linework behind a groundcover hatch or paver hatch?
I don't think AutoCAD gives the ability to set a transparency to only the background colour on a hatch, and not the hatch pattern itself.
You could always just choose a more pale version of the colour to simulate what the transparency would give, and keeping the hatches at the back of arrangement would allow any linework like underground pipes to show no problem, so I'm thinking you could get away with not needing transparency.
We will of course be keeping the transparency in the tree and shrub colour render hatches.
I don't think AutoCAD gives the ability to set a transparency to only the background colour on a hatch, and not the hatch pattern itself.
You could always just choose a more pale version of the colour to simulate what the transparency would give, and keeping the hatches at the back of arrangement would allow any linework like underground pipes to show no problem, so I'm thinking you could get away with not needing transparency.
We will of course be keeping the transparency in the tree and shrub colour render hatches.
There are no comments made for this post yet
Agreed on your drop of gradients and unbloating file sizes, as long as there's still control of transparency of colors.
- Amanda Marin
- 1 month ago
- #138
David, could you please elaborate on your request? Is there a scenario where you need to see other linework behind a groundcover hatch or paver hatch?
I don't think AutoCAD gives the ability to set a transparency to only the background colour on a hatch, and not the hatch pattern itself.
You could always just choose a more pale version of the colour to simulate what the transparency would give, and keeping the hatches at the back of arrangement would allow any linework like underground pipes to show no problem, so I'm thinking you could get away with not needing transparency.
We will of course be keeping the transparency in the tree and shrub colour render hatches.
I don't think AutoCAD gives the ability to set a transparency to only the background colour on a hatch, and not the hatch pattern itself.
You could always just choose a more pale version of the colour to simulate what the transparency would give, and keeping the hatches at the back of arrangement would allow any linework like underground pipes to show no problem, so I'm thinking you could get away with not needing transparency.
We will of course be keeping the transparency in the tree and shrub colour render hatches.
There are no comments made for this post yet
Anything to make the file size smaller- we can always add a gradient in photoshop or adjust the graphic if we feel it is necessary!! Thank you.
So long as I don't have to assign all new hatches to every groundcover and refnote - like the hatching system update of a couple years ago!
Almost made me change career!
Almost made me change career!
- Page :
- 1
There are no replies made for this post yet.
Contact
- Land F/X
Our software tailors AutoCAD®, Revit®, SketchUp®, and Rhino® to the needs of landscape architects, irrigation designers, and other professionals. We automate your most tedious tasks and ensure accuracy, giving you more time to design.