Using area styles

Surface styles allow you to display architectural components with different surface settings depending on the reference scale or drawing type set.

The drawing type defines how elements are displayed on screen and in the printout. The display of the elements varies depending on the selected drawing type. Requirements: the format properties are taken from the layer (in a fixed manner) and the use of line styles is selected. In document mode, drawing types can be selected in the status bar, and in the Layout module, you can make a selection when you place layout elements.

In contrast to line styles, this association is not based on the From Layer format property. Rather, the architectural elements’ component properties or the 2D surface element known as

Area Style are used to establish this link. You can save hatching styles, patterns, fills or bitmaps for fixed scale ranges or drawing types as named area styles. Moreover, area styles can be used for architectural components as an alternative to hatching styles, patterns, fills or bitmap areas.

You can use line styles to specify how elements are displayed depending on the reference scale and/or display type. Requirements: the format properties are taken from the layer (in a fixed manner) and the use of line styles is selected. The format properties (pen, line, color) you define for a layer can be saved in a named line style. Elements can then assume the format properties of this layer. When defining line styles, you specify whether they change according to the scale or display type. You can define different line styles for various scale ranges and/or display types so that the elements are displayed and printed differently, depending on the reference scale or display type set. Using line styles, you can work on a scale-independent basis.

Area styles are defined in the Format Definition tab in the Layer dialog box or using Tools - Defaults - Line styles, area styles, drawing types.

When you create a project, you can specify whether you want to use the area styles in the office standard or project-specific area styles (see Using project resources). Patterns, hatching styles and area styles are based on the same setting.