Foreground and Background Linework Plotting

Often in the process of creating drawings, you want to have one type of linework sit on top of a different type of linework e.g. you may have a building and some windows, and you want the windows to be drawn on top of the building lines when producing the drawings.

The way to handle this is to set the different type of linework on different Layers in the drawing. You can then use the Layer Manager to set the Building to Background and the Windows to Foreground which will place the window linework on top of the building linework on the PDF or Printed output.

However I would also note the following. TBC has a hierarchy of object types and each object type currently will print also with that hierarchy. This is I believe not the correct solution for plotting purposes, however this appears to be the hierarchy that exists

Solids like IFC Shells / 3D Shells are the highest priority
Linework is the second priority
Fills and hatches are a third priority

This means that if you have a solid over the top of linework you will not be able to see the linework beneath the solid in a drawing.

This also means if in the example of Buildings and Windows, if the Building is Filled and the Windows are filled, the Window linework will be on top of the Building linework, and the Window Fill will be on top of the building fill, however the Building linework will be on top of the window fill so you will need to use transparency to get the drawing looking good

The video shows the Building and Window example with varying degrees of opacity of fill and varying linework weights.

Example PDF Output
Test FG BG 4.pdf (228.9 KB)

Note: I have noticed in a number of Windows applications that when you Print to PDF, if you select an existing PDF file and overwrite it, very often the file is not overwritten at all and it remains as it was from the prior version. This seems to happen when the PDF file is open in e.g. Acrobat Reader or Bluebeam Review etc. i.e. those applications have the file open, so the writer cannot overwrite the file and TBC does not warn you of that fact.

I recommend that you always write a new PDF file to be sure that you are getting what you wanted. This can cause people to believe that TBC is not working as they make changes and write out a new PDF file and it looks exactly the same as the last attempt to print.