Standards and styles¶

Every colour, pen, line, text, dimension and hatch of a Bimble drawing comes from a graphic style. The same style is used on screen, in bimble render pictures, and on plans and sheets. An office keeps its standards in one style file and shares it.

The Standards panel¶

Manage → Graphic standards (or "standards" in the command palette) opens the Standards panel on the right, beside the drawing, so you see each change on it.

• At the top: where the standards come from (a file, or Bimble's default) and whether they are changed, not saved. The title row lists them under Not saved too.
• Load… reads a style file; Save… writes one (only what differs from the default), and what is saved becomes the reference for changed.
• Revert goes back to the file as loaded or last saved.
• Reset to default… puts every standard back to Bimble's default, after asking. Your file is not changed.
• The search box finds a section by its title or by the name of a type in it ("earth", "red", "2.5 mm"): sections that match open, the others hide.

The sections follow.

Line weights¶

Sixteen pens, each with a width in mm on paper for each scale, as in Revit. Three tables:

• Model: lines of the model (cut outlines, seen edges, hatches);
• Perspective: for 3D pictures (kept, not used yet);
• Annotation: dimensions, texts, axes, the frame (the same width at every scale).

The default is Revit's metric table, with columns for 1:5, 1:10, 1:20, 1:50, 1:100, 1:200 and 1:500. Add scale 1: adds a column, and the x in a column's heading removes it. A drawing at a scale between two columns uses the nearest one (1:75 uses 1:100's widths).

Line types¶

A line type is a name, a colour, a dash pattern (dash, gap, dash, gap… in mm on paper; empty for a continuous line) and a pen (1 to 16). The defaults combine nine colours with continu 1, 2, 3 and 5, dash 1, 2, 3 and 5, axes 1 and 2 (dash-dot) and axes_detail_1: black_continu_5, red_dash_1…

Lines on drawings chooses the line type of each kind of line: cut outlines, seen edges, above the cut, hatches (their width), grid axes, dimensions, frame and title block. Renaming a line type updates what uses it.

Text and dimension types¶

A text type is a font, a size in mm on paper and a colour. The defaults are Arial 5, 4, 3.5, 2.5 and 2 mm in black, red, green, brown and blue ("Arial 2.5 mm black").

A dimension type says how a length is written and drawn:

The defaults, in black, red, blue and green: cm without unit ("600"), m with two decimals and the unit ("6.00 m"), mm with the unit.

Texts and dimensions get their type from the tool when they are made (sheets). One without a type uses the plan template's unit and the style's text size.

Hatch types¶

A hatch type is a pattern as printed: its spacing is in mm on paper, the same at every scale.

• Fill: a solid colour under the lines, or none (white paper).
• Lines: one or more families of parallel lines, written angle spacing [offset [dash gap…]], families separated by ;. For example 45 1.5 is concrete's diagonals; 45 4 0; 45 4 0.5; 45 4 1 is earth (three lines 0.5 mm apart, every 4 mm).
• Colour and pen (its width comes from the Model line weights at the drawing's scale).

The panel shows every hatch type as a swatch; point at one to see which materials use it. The defaults: concrete, masonry, steel and timber cut and seen, earth, drainage, insulation, diagonals in five colours, solid black, grey and light grey.

Hatches by material chooses, for each material family, the hatch type where it is cut and where it is seen from above. Own pattern keeps the family's screen pattern, scaled to paper: that is what drawings use until you choose.

On screen¶

Colours and light: background, edges, selection, hover and measurement colours, the light. Each material family has its colour, up to two families of hatch lines and a stipple, used on screen.

Style files¶

A style file is JSON and lists only what differs from the default:

{ "edges": "#d01010" }

bimble style                       # the complete default style: the reference for every field
bimble style my-style.json         # checks a file and prints it in full
bimble view model.ifc --style my-style.json
bimble render model.ifc out.png --style my-style.json
bimble plan model.ifc plan.pdf --storey "Level 1" --style my-style.json
bimble sheet model.bimble S-101 S-101.pdf --style my-style.json

Unknown fields and values out of range are errors, so a typo is reported instead of being ignored. The paper part is under paper: pens, line_types, lines, text_types, dimension_types, hatch_types, material_hatches.

The fields are described in the source, docs/styles/README.md. Two examples are next to it: red-edges.json, and black-and-white.json (white fills, black hatches and flat light, to look like a print).

The words, title block and what a plan shows are not part of the style: they are in the plan template.