Trimble Business Center

V5.31 + V5.32 and I had my issues with that before. See here How to manipulate the display sequence of CAD elements and in addition to the recent question How do you control display order? 

A colleague of mine is just preparing the sheet sets for our starting construction site and the overview sheet looks crappy since there doesn't seem to be a way to send items to the fore- or background.

Even though I set the priority for the number 3 in the screen shot to background the line work, which is set to normal, is drawn behind it. Only some texts are drawn in front of the 3.

If I set the number 3 to Foreground then those few texts are drawn behind it.

For some reason the priority setting has no effect on the line work, nor has the layer name order.

The help states "Display priority - Set the stack order for layers that overlap by selecting Foreground, Normal, or Background. When two layers have the same stack order, their visibility is sorted by the layer color order from the color list." The text and line work are on different layers but I have tested different colors as well, to no avail.

The priority setting also has no influence on the Sheet View.

PDF print looks different to sheet view.

Text layer is set to Foreground now, Sheet View looks ok.

TBC print as PDF

TBC at least seems to try to have the text in front of the line work. But it seems that it is cutting the line work wherever it crosses a text, which leads to crappy results as well.

Microsoft PDF Printer

 Text is all behind line work

This needs to be addressed. Right now it's a gamble in which order the line work ends up in the deliverable.

Ronny

I have seen that if you have a PDF File open that when you try to reuse the same file that a new PDF does not get written - this makes it seem like the changes in TBC make no difference - I have tested this myself and it was working in 5.31 - but I was working with another user and we noticed that if you write a PDF and then open it in Acrobat or some other tool, and see it is not doing what you wanted so you go back to TBC - try something different and then write the file again and save it to the same file - you will not get an update. I was looking at Grid Lines overwriting section data at the time - if I used the layer manager priority settings it worked fine for that - I cannot categorically say it will work the same for text - I can try it later today to see what I get.

Alan 

Hi Alan,

I made sure to close the PDF in the viewer before creating the new PDF.

I just created a simple Test, is attached.

The circle should be on top and the text behind of everything.

Left is Sheet View, right is PDF

Added a green circle on the circle layer after everything else.

Plan View, Sheet View, PDF

Swapping the circles color does change the circle order. But Blue is in the drop down list above green. Which value does TBC use to define which color to draw on top of the other? But the circles are still behind everything.

Although it is not what I want at least in this example it is WYSIWYG between Sheet View and PDF. But that is not always the case as my previous examples show.

I also tried different colors for the text layer. No change. All PDF snippets, so the file was definitely reloaded.

So, after wasting hours I still haven't figured out how TBC does define the draw and print order. And from my point of view it does ignore the rather limited priority settings in the Layer Manager.

I believe I figured the color order out. It uses the RGB values. And sorts them ascending by R,G,B.

Columns A,B,C are random color values - sorted columns E,F,G is how TBC seems to order/prioritize them within a layer.

So, I moved all elements to one layer.

The text is set to 0,0,1,

The drawing order should be from background to foreground  - text, blue circle, greenish rectangle, pink circle.

plan view, sheet view, PDF

Text is always wrong, line work is wrong in plan view but correct in sheet view and PDF.

I can see that the Text is drawing on Top always - this applies to both True Types and Stroked Fonts. This looks like a defect.

TBC has three controls for display Order - Background, Normal and Foreground. If it does any additional sorting by color order on a single layer that is likely / maybe coincidental that it does something logical - I will ask that question but I have never seen anything that says one color is a priority over another color on the same layer - however there has to be some way (it could be based on the order that the objects are created in or something to do with colors as you suggest - but I have never seen any documentation on that.

I tested Lines, Lines with Fills and Text and it appears to work on Lines and Lines with Fills, it seems that Text is what is failing. I will see if I can find out what else may be happening.

Alan

Hi Alan,

from the F1 Help from within the Layer Manager, ok it only refers to the layers, but it seems to be using the same logic for differently colored line work on one layer.

And the thing is, that in our Sheet Collection for our Underground Services we can't get the Sheet number text to be printed on top of the line work, even if I set it explicitely to foreground and white which is at the top of the priority list. It's somewhat unpredictable.

I have been digging into this issue - here is what I have found out

TBC has a standard hard coded priority order that is independent of the priority settings 

Images / georeferenced PDF etc are always in background

Fills and hatch patterns are next

Linework is next

Text is always at the front

Then you have the priority settings of layer manager 

Within each of the groups above - the layer priorities can be applied ie Background, Normal or Foreground 

Within a single layer I am told that there is no specific logic applied - it is most likely the most recent addition to the layer is at the front however i am told that that can change on save so will not be predictable - so if you want one line on top of another place them on different layers - changing  color or any other method will not have a consistent effect

The development team said that they had never heard a request to be able to put text behind linework in a drawing

So this is how it works

Alan

Hi Alan,

thanks for digging around. But I'm afraid TBC doesn't always adhere to those rules then.

Sending text to background was just a test from me. You say that is not possible and text will always be on top.

That seems to be the case in plan view only as my PDF screenshot at the very beginning showed.

 still haven't figured out why this text is in the background, even setting it to yellow or white, high up in the color hierarchy, doesn't resolve it

TBC seems to stick to the foreground/background rules in plan view only.

3 texts, each on different layer and respective view priority.

Plan View is correct.

Sheet View and PDF, both wrong

If I apply the colors as per my list above, the plan view is still correct.

But now Sheet View and PDF are correct as well.

"Within a single layer I am told that there is no specific logic applied - it is most likely the most recent addition to the layer is at the front however i am told that that can change on save so will not be predictable - so if you want one line on top of another place them on different layers - changing  color or any other method will not have a consistent effect"

According to my testing setting the colors right is currently the only way to nearly get what I actually want. And so far it's still the same after saving.

Text F2 added as last one. Color set to be lower than Magenta

Color set to higher than Magenta

Plan, Sheet and PDF are the same in this case.

So, whoever you talked to at Trimble told you what their intention is, but that is not what their code is actually doing.

There is an obvious discrepancy between Plan View, Sheet View and PDF.

We need WYSIWYG from plan view to deliverable.

I can take another look to see whether the information I got from one of the development leads at Trimble is correct or not - I cannot say that it is or is not correct - I have no way to factually tell other than to relay what they tell me or through trial and error. I will see what I can see and then I will report my findings back to QA and Testing.

Alan

Thanks Alan,

give them the attached TBC file and let them explain why the text and line work order is according to view priority in Plan View but color priority in Sheet View and PDF.

It's been a while since I had time to play around with it.

But today I had some kind of epiphany in regards to the text issue.

 The problem is that it is a True Type Font.

As soon as I change it to any stroked font it works as expected.