Shaded views on drawings

[Kirsten]

Does anyone have any guidelines or comments about using shaded views on drawings? One concern is how well do they reproduce. Should they be used for pictorial or exploded views only? Or not at all, and if not, why not? One philosophy is that the more it looks like the real thing, the more people will be able to understand it.
All comments are welcome!

 

[MadMango]

With MCAD as prevalent as it is now, I think you'll see an acceptence of this practice. I don't know of any standard that "forbids" its use. Drawings are suppose to be unambiguous, if shaded views get you to that point, all the better.

Back in the drafting board days, I can remember doing ink-washes over some details or parts in exploded views in order to either make them stand out or to suppress their visibility to make other things clearer.

Recently, I have used color shaded views in a plan view of an assembly to make parts stand out from others, instead of just looking like a bunch of parallel lines.

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[Heckler]

Kirsten,

I side with MadMango on this topic. Although, there is no spec that guides us I think it would be acceptable if the situation dictated it. I can tell you my boss is indifferent about us using it. Although, he gets a kick out of E-Drawings. Use your best judgement.

Best Regards,

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
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[ctopher]

We do not use shaded views. People copy and fax drawings and the quality of the view gets really bad. I thought I read once somewhere that there are not to be shaded views, but can't find it. Still looking.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP3.1 / PDMWorks 05
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[McLeod]

One of the biggest problems with shaded views on drawings, IMO, is that the size of the CAD file increases significantly. Yes, storage space is cheap these days, but consider a medium-sized company with hundreds of drawings - now double or triple the space consumed by each drawing.

There's a section of Genium's drafting manual (

http://www.draftingzone.com)

about Functional/Simplified Drafting - i.e., less is more, and keep it simple, stupid. The fundamental tenet is that clarity is derived from providing only as much information as necessary to define the design, and no more.

That being said, for presentations and Marketing materials, being able to do color shaded views in draft mode is really cool!

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

I often use shaded in section views & isometrics for clarity. I don't care what the standards say, if shaded views eliminate ambiguity & helps understanding, then shaded views should be used.

A poor quality photocopy of a shaded view which helps someone, is still far better than a perfectly reproduced line drawing which doesn't.

Drawing size could probaby be worked around by creating a API/VB macro which toggles selected (appropriately named) views to shaded/non-shaded. "On" for printing, "Off" for saving.


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[ctopher]

I prefer all dwgs printed and saved without shading. But I do send eDrawings with shading.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP3.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

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