Shaded Varicolor Symbols

image\varicolor.gif

CC3 includes symbols with a color scheme based on the current color – shaded varicolor symbols. You can recognise them in a catalog, because you see a small square in the current color in the top right corner. There are two type of varicolor symbols, vector and raster.

Adding shaded varicolor symbols to the drawing

Choose a color, then click on the varicolor symbol and place as normal. When you place a varicolor symbol, the main color is the current drawing color, but the symbol will also include areas both darker and lighter than the current color.

To create a vector shaded varicolor symbol:

  1. Open the symbol catalog to which you want to add the shaded varicolor symbol.

  2. On the Symbols menu, click Symbol Manager. Click New and select two points to start a new symbol.

  3. Create layers with the name VARICOLOR and a number afterwards. This is the diplacement from the current color. These are all valid varicolor layer names:

VARICOLOR-4

VARICOLOR-0

VARICOLOR+0

VARICOLOR0

VARICOLOR3

VARICOLOR+3

  1. Draw areas of color on these layers according to your color scheme.

  2. On the Symbols menu, click Symbol Options. Select the Varicolor symbol option.

  3. Test the symbol in a blank drawing.

What happens when you add a vector shaded varicolor symbol

When you place a shaded varicolor symbol in a new color, a symbol definition is added to the drawing called <symbol name> C<color number> All the colors are added to a new drawing layer called VARICOLOR. For example, if you placed a varicolor shaded symbol called Bed, and the current color was 168, a new definition called Bed C168 would appear at the bottom of the drawing symbol list.

How They Work

CC3 looks at the layers in the symbol and displaces the color according to the layers in the symbol. The main color will be the current colors. The other colors in the scheme will be selected from either side of the color on the color palette. If there is no sufficiently dark color, black will be substituted, if no light color then white will be used. They don'tt work on custom palettes where the palette is not arranged in rows of 16 shades. When you use colors 0 to 30, the shaded colors will be displaced from the nearest matching color on the palette.

To create a raster shaded varicolor symbol

Raster SVS are created by stacking a normal png image under a png image created with the current color flag on. For more information, see creating PNG varicolor symbols