During the creation of a new project, sooner or later you will have to deal with its presentation, which includes not only the image on the screen but also the printed version. As in other situations, there are several ways to achieve the desired results, and I will first show you how to do it on the broadest level. That’s what the Object Style function is for, and before I show you how to use it, I’d like to show you what the problem we’re about to solve is.

To that end, I will use the Zoom Region function to enlarge the detail where all parts of the construction are clearly visible. At the moment, I am most interested in the lines that represent the facade wall, the mezzanine structure and the ceiling. As you can notice, in this case only the wall is represented by a slightly thicker line, while all other elements are shown in the same way. If I go back to a smaller scale with Zoom Previous and zoom in on another detail, you’ll see the same problem repeat itself throughout the drawing. In other words, here too there is a difference between the thickness of the line that shows the ceiling and this small part of the wall.

On a smaller scale, it can be clearly seen that these are the same elements, so there is certainly a possibility to solve the problem by directly selecting and changing the appropriate parameters. Although this method seems quite acceptable at first glance, it would be much better to reach a solution at a higher level, that it covers the entire project. To make it clearer to you, I will right-click on the line that indicates the position of the cross-section and select the Go to View option from the auxiliary menu. As soon as a new drawing appears on the screen, I will be able to zoom in on the detail representing the section through the ceiling and confirm that it is also drawn here with a thin line. In doing so, it should be borne in mind that the facade wall is shown in a completely satisfactory manner, a line that has a certain thickness. The same problem is repeated a little further down, because the slab representing the ground floor is shown as if it were in another plan, as if the section passes by it, which certainly does not reflect the real situation.

Now that I’ve proven to you that the same problem runs through the whole project, I can go back to the basic drawing and try to find a solution that will cover all the attachments. In this situation, it would be best to use the Object Styles function to display the currently valid parameters and look for the one responsible for the different line thicknesses. So first I’m going to go to the section called Manage and look for the shortcut to launch Object Styles. As soon as I click on it, a new box will appear on the screen containing a really large number of different parameters. However, they are divided into several sections, and for now I will stick to the first one (Model Objects), because it contains everything I need. If you want to concentrate on an even narrower area, click on the Filter List option and select the area you are interested in from the menu. I’m working with architectural elements right now, but I don’t mind having other parts of the project displayed on the screen at the same time, which means there’s no need to change the current setup.

The first column shows all the categories that are represented in this project, so it won’t be difficult for me to go through the entire list and find what interests me. Before that, I would like to draw your attention to the second and third columns, because they contain data related to the thickness of the line (Line Weight). As you can see, there is a possibility to define this parameter especially for the case that one of the elements is shown in the layout (Projection) or is cut, and this is equally valid for the plans (Plan View) and for sections. I am currently most interested in this second case, because I would like to solve the problem that exists in this drawing.

That’s why I’m going to use this slider to go down to the end of the list, because that’s where the item that represents the walls is located. According to the currently valid parameters, all walls located in the second plan will be drawn with a thin line (Line Weight 1), while those intersected by the vertical plane will be significantly thicker (Line Weight 3). If that doesn’t suit you, you can click on one of the listed values at any time and select the desired line thickness from the list. It can be very large, but in practice values higher than 5 or 6 are rarely used. This can best be seen on the example of terrain (Topography), because a line with a relatively large size is used to cut through the soil or some similar material thickness.

I am completely satisfied with this state, but I need to check how the parameters related to other elements of the drawing, primarily ceilings are set. So I’ll first look for the item in the list that represents the floor construction (Floors) and check how it is represented in both modes. As you can see, at the moment there is no difference between the appearance and the cut in both cases thin lines will be used so I have to click on this field and select a slightly larger value from the list. I can repeat the same procedure for the item called Ceiling because it refers to the ceilings and since I would like them to be shown in the section with the same thickness, I will also set this parameter to triple.

For now, we will not deal in detail with the parameters found in the adjacent columns, because you yourself can conclude that they allow you to change the color and choose the appropriate type of line (Line Pattern). I’m fine with the current state, so I’ll click the OK button and close the parameters box.

If I then zoom in again on the detail where all three elements (facade wall and ceiling) are shown at the same time, you will see that the same line thickness is used for them. Since these parameters are valid for the entire project, I can freely continue working without fear that some of the drawings will show a difference in the display of individual elements.