It has been brought to our attention that the Plotting Guidelines portion of NCS version 4.0 erroneously assigns line widths to display colors. Page PG-3 of NCS v4 includes a table with three columns identifying line width assignments to colors. The columns are labled MicroStation Line Width; Line Width mm; and Line Width in. However, members of the National CAD Standard Project Committee (NCSPC) approved an amendment (POP-013M-Taylor-29-Jun-06.xls) that did away with mapping colors to specific line widths. This is supported by text appearing above the table which states, "Since various screen [display] colors can be assigned to color numbers, only color numbers will be addressed." The NCSPC Steering Committee has been informed about the problem and they are reviewing it. We anticipate that an addendum will be issued to remove the columns from the table.
UPDATE: NIBS has agreed that inclusion of the line widths in the table is an error; and they have also acknowledged that text at the bottom of the table that reads, " *Red, Green, Blue (RGB) color values for gray may vary by plus or minus 5" will also be removed.
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Update: This error has been corrected and the it no longer appears in the NCS.
A question for you. I’ve looked through the NCS in regards to text and it say that we can’t have italic text, and we can’t have bold text, but I can’t find anywhere, where it talks about the width factor of the text. Is this something we need to address in the next revision cycle, or let it be a gap in the standard, which would allow people to shrink or expand the width of the text.
There are at least two references to text width in the NCS. Page UDS-07.20 states, "Fonts should be capitalized, proportional, sans-serif, and non-stylized. Do not use italics, underlining, bold, or other highlighting techniques" (Note: A proportional font is a font in which different characters have different widths). However, these format requirements do not really address compressed fonts (also known as condensed fonts).
A compressed font is a font in which the set-widths of the characters are narrower than the standard typeface. The best resource I am aware of in the NCS that addresses compressed fonts is the graphic example of NCS-compliant text on page UDS-07.22. We can interpret the graphic to represent an uncompressed, standard typeface font; therfore, we can also interpret the graphic to mean that condensed fonts are not allowed. Don't like that answer? Neither do I because it is not a very clear definition.
So how do we fix this? If we are going to allow compressed fonts, how do we determine what the maximum allowable compression percentage should be? 10%? 20%? 30%? We can all agree that there comes a point when too much compression makes text difficult to read. But before we get into that issue any further, maybe we should focus on whether compressed fonts should even be allowed at all.
Are compressed fonts needed in the NCS because we are simply trying to put too much text in too little space? If so, maybe we need to address that issue first. Where do we typically use them? In reference symbols? Schedules? Dimensions? As we begin to look at each of the locations, it is likely we'll be able to provide some very good arguments that they should't be used at all - which is what I think.
I certainly would be in favor of a ballot amendment to change the wording on page UDS-07.20 to read as follows: "Fonts should be capitalized, proportional, sans-serif, non-compressed, and non-stylized. Do not use italics, underlining, bold, or other highlighting techniques."
So convince me otherwise - why should the NCS allow compressed fonts?
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