CAD colors

I've added a favorite colors list, but I'm curious...
Is the set of colors associated with the pen toolbar common for CAD?
Is there a more preferable set of colors?

Something to consider is the issue of screen colors vs printable colors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMYK_color_model#Comparison_with_RGB_displays

Ravas,

I believe that DXF specification support by default a set number of colors in a 8 bit range, a set of them have special meaning (0 = by block, 256 by layer) http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/autocad_2012_pdf_dxf-reference_enu.pdf

Newer version's of DXF specifications allow for RGB colors, and we also support that.

So a predefined set of colors does help and I believe the CAD people do have specific colors for specific area's in drawing, but this can also change per company.. I can imagine that apart from colro naming (red, blue, yellow) I can also image people might use 'Wall, Sand, floor etc...'.

For us the issue of CMYK doesn't matter to much, if not at all since we are not operating in the prepress industrie and if it does happen, you can somewhat convert between both color models but this usually happens in the prepress software and doesn;t really concern CAD software.

Hope that answers your question...

It's helpful information, thanks :-]

With the intention of a community survey...

Do other CAD programs use the same color set?
Do you prefer the set from another program?
What colors would you choose if you were tasked with making a standard set?

Since you ask opinion from users… Ideally you could offer a few different palettes in the options. This way different use case would be covered (colours for dark and for clear backgrounds, colours of common architecture materials, common metals in electronics, web design colours, etc.) In my case I work in IC design (sort of). Comparing with other tools, what is really missing is the ability to associate a layer with hatches. For a quick look at comparable IC design software, you can check these short videos (from youtube):

• Lasi 7, color/hatch scale visible at 5:34
• Layout Editor, scale always visible
• L_Edit, example circuit visible between 9 to 12 minutes
• Synopsys (this one is industrial-grade expensive), click anywhere between 3 and 30 minutes from the start for an example circuit

Thanks :-]

I think there is no ideal standard color set. There are so many different branches with their own needs. Also companies producing paints, lacquers and so on all have their own palettes. Even in the professional architectural cad I used to work with you didn't always find the hue you wanted. There are some official color standards like RAL in Germany and in the US I think it is called Federal Standards, but they are not always useful. If LC allows it to define any colour by entering values or pick up from screen ( colour wheel or  similar) and even building your own palette that's fine.
Where does that palette you have provided come from?
I would prefer the ordering of the colours by hue instead of alphabetically. This would make searching for a colour most approximate to your aim easier. More difficult to code certainly. There is no way to render all possible colours in one dimension (linear) continuously, you have to step them for colours plus white and black components or something like that. Like the standard inkscape palette at the bottom of the screen.

 

Thanks :-]

The list in the drop down menu in the new pen wizard is
every named color that Qt has defined,
which is returned by QColor::colorNames()
The list returned by that function is already sorted alphabetically.

The list from the pen toolbar appears to be the colors defined by the Qt::GlobalColor enum.
http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qcolor.html#predefined-colors

I'm not going to bother changing anything for now,
since a predefined list will from now on be secondary to the favorites list.
Maybe one day someone will add support for multiple favorites lists.