Re: fill pattern

[Daniel J S. <dan...@ie...>]

Ethan Merritt wrote:

> Beyond that it's a losing battle.
> Dots are particularly bad, however, unless you can scale them
> up or down to match the printer resolution.

True.

>  The default "dot"
> on a high-resolution printer is effectively invisible.

True.

> Diagonal lines are also problematic, because they lead to 
> odd visual effects.  Adjacent rectangles with opposite diagonal
> fill give the optical illusion of leaning toward or away from
> each other.

True.  Even nausiating some times.


> We don't have to invent this stuff from scratch, however.
> There are many collections of fill patterns on the web, and
> serious publications evaluating whether they are good or
> bad. For example:
>     portal.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=192438&type=pdf
>     ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel2/1131/8046/00347511.pdf?arnumber=347511
> 
> Note that one school of thought says that fill patterns of any
> sort are bad, and it is usually preferable to label the interior
> of the area with a text or symbolic description of its contents.

Well, colors seems to be a good alternative.  Is there some way to use defined rgb colors with the fill to expand the allowable number?

Dan