Working with Shade plot

About

Shade plots allow you to choose a printing style for your plot.

A drawing containing shaded 3D entities can be plotted as it is displayed in a wireframe, with the hidden lines removed, or as rendered.

The difference between Visual Styles and Shade Plot

Visual Styles help control the display of entities, while Shade plots control the plot output.

General Procedure

Set the Shade plot settings of a Viewport:

  1. Select the layout for which you want to make the changes.
  2. Select the viewport and open the Properties panel.
  3. In the Misc area set the required Shade plot.

Set the Shade plot setting in Model Space:

  1. Go to the Model Space and make sure that no entities are selected.
  2. Open the Print dialog box and select the page setup you want to modify.
  3. Under Shaded viewport options section select the desired Shade plot.
  4. Click Apply.

PDF files are displayed as vector graphics when:

  • Shade plot is set to Legacy wireframe or Legacy hidden.
  • Visual Style is set to 2DWireframe, and Shade plot to As displayed.

The vector file format allows unlimited scalability without sacrificing the viewing quality.

PDF files are displayed as bitmap when:

Shade plot is set to Conceptual, Hidden, Modeling, Realistic, Shaded, Shaded with edges, Shades of gray, Sketchy, Wireframe, X-Ray, BIM, Maquette, Render, See-through or Mechanical.

Note: The available Shade plots depend on your drawing template.

The resolution for the bitmap format can be changed by modifying the Image DPI setting: open the Plotter Configuration Editor dialog box, go to the Settings tab, click Custom Properties... button, and under the Output quality section you can modify the Image DPI setting.

Note: For every new Visual Style created, a new Shade plot is automatically generated.