Fill Styles

Fill styles are used in n4ce to highlight certain items or regions.  They can be used in survey shapes or to identify which DTM triangles belong to which DTM group.  When selecting fill styles, the dialog box shown to the right will be displayed.

The Styles list shows the fill styles that have been set up in the current project.  As you highlight a fill style, the contents of the Properties group will change to reflect the settings for that fill style.

The Save button allows you to save the current fill styles so that the next time you start a new project the fill styles are as displayed.  A check is made to ensure that you wish to overwrite the system defaults.  The system default fill styles are stored in a file called FSTYLES.INI.

The Draw Boundaries when Printing check button is used when printing to a PDF file.  When sending a polygon fill to a PDF file driver, the boundary of the fill is not always complete, and you can sometimes see gaps between adjacent fills.  If this check button is set, n4ce will also print the boundary of the fill to erase those gaps.  This does have one drawback when using pattern fills rather than solid fills.  The boundary will be drawn in the foreground colour and you will see the lines representing the fill boundaries.  If we take the example of printing DTM groups where the group uses a pattern fill, you will see the triangles in the foreground colour of the pattern even if the triangles have been turned off.

Fill Patterns

A pattern is a binary representation of an 8 by 8 square of pixels.  If a pixel in the pattern is turned on, then it is in the foreground.  The remaining pixels are in the background. 

There are 14 fill patterns that can be used in fill styles.  There are two fill patterns that do not have a displayable pattern.  One is called None where everything is in the background.  The second is called Solid where everything is in the foreground.

There are 12 further fill styles which display a pattern as shown in the table below.

Adding and Removing Fill Styles

The Add and Remove buttons allows you to create new fill styles and to remove existing ones.  There is always a fill style called Default.  This fill style is used when n4ce cannot find a fill style.  For instance, if you remove a fill style that is used elsewhere, n4ce will use the default fill style instead.

If you wish to create a new fill style, select the Add button.  You will be asked to enter a name for the new fill style and it will be created.  The new fill style will have the same settings as the fill style that was highlighted immediately prior to the Add button being selected.  If there is a fill style that is like the one that you wish to create, highlight it before using this option.

If you wish to remove a fill style, highlight it and select the Remove button.  Note that the default fill style cannot be removed.  When the default style is selected, this button will be disabled.

Fill Style Properties

The Properties group of the fill styles dialog box display the properties that can be assigned to any fill style.  As you change these properties, a preview window which shows what the fill style will look like will be updated.

The Pattern field defines the bitmap pattern that will be used.  The Foreground and Background fields define the foreground and background colours that are used in conjunction with the pattern to make up a fill style.