Drawing Recipes

A recipe is one drawing's whole styling saved as a file, so the next drawing starts where this one finished. Where a style preset is one layer's style and the Layer Style Database remembers one layer name at a time, a recipe carries everything that makes a finished sheet look the way it does: the layer styles, the look and its sun, the vegetation view, the export settings, the block choices and the CAD mapping rules. The aim is the shortest route from a CAD export to a finished rendering: open the export, accept the recipe, and look at what is left.

What a Recipe Holds

Part	What is saved	How it is applied
Layer styles	Every layer's style, by layer name: fill, material, texture, stroke, dash pattern, shadow, feather, height, and whether the layer renders as plain CAD. Custom texture images travel inside the file.	A layer takes the style saved under its exact name, else under its local name without the xref prefix (`xSite\|C-PVMT-CONC` takes `C-PVMT-CONC`'s style, and the other way round). A layer the recipe does not name keeps what it has, and the summary lists it.
The look	The render look whole: kind, paper, line treatment, shadows and their direction and length, sun altitude, depth, grain and lettering, with the sun's date and time when the sun is placed by date.	Replaces the drawing's look. The site (latitude, longitude and clock offset) describes a drawing, not a look, so the drawing keeps its own under the recipe's date and time.
Vegetation view	The VIEW tab's Trees and Season setting.	Set on the drawing; As set when the recipe was saved that way.
Export settings	The export resolution and whether a PDF keeps its layers.	Set on the drawing.
Block choices	For every CAD block the drawing's symbols stand for: the library symbol it draws as and the tree size, season, colour and size most of its symbols have.	The symbols of a block the recipe names take its choice, as a Plant Symbols row does. On a fresh export the symbols CAD sent are sized by these choices as they arrive.
Mapping rules	Your CAD mapping rules as they stood when the recipe was saved.	Used for the drawing the recipe goes on: hatch, linetype, layer and block names are recognized by the recipe's rules first, then yours. Your own CAD Mappings are changed only when you tick the box in Apply Recipe.

A recipe does not carry an object's own override (an override is keyed by its CAD handle, which no other drawing has), whether a layer is shown or locked, the sheet, or the site. The sheet unit is converted on the way: a recipe saved from an inch sheet puts its thicknesses, dashes and shadows on a millimetre sheet at the same printed size. A layer height is converted between drawing units when both drawings record theirs; where one does not, the number goes over as it is and the summary says so.

Saving a Recipe

Finish styling a drawing.
On the FILE tab, click Save Recipe and choose where the file goes. A recipe is a plain .asr file; keep it with the project, or on the office share where every machine can reach it.
Studio then offers to make it your default recipe (below). Yes or no can be changed later in Apply Recipe.

Applying a Recipe

Open the drawing to style.
On the FILE tab, click Apply Recipe. The dialog lists the recipes used lately, the default marked; Browse finds any other.
Read what the recipe holds, then tick the boxes you want:
- Also add its mapping rules and block choices to my CAD Mappings makes the recipe's rules yours, ahead of your own, so every later export recognizes the same names. Off, they serve this drawing only.
- Offer this recipe when a CAD export opens makes it the default.
Click Apply. The whole recipe is one undo step, so it is safe to try. A summary says how many layers took a style, which were left alone, and what the symbols did.

Applying a recipe to a drawing you have already styled replaces the styles of the layers it names and leaves the others, so a recipe can also serve as a quick restyle: save one from the drawing in its Realistic form and another in its Marker form, and switch.

The Default Recipe

When a fresh CAD export opens, Studio asks whether to apply your default recipe, in one box, after the remembered layer styles and CAD Auto-Mapping have had their say. The recipe's layer styles go on over the auto-mapping, so a layer the recipe names ends up exactly as the recipe has it, and the remembered styles and the mapping fill in the layers it does not name. The export's symbols arrive sized by the recipe's block choices, and Plant Symbols suggests from its rules. Your CAD Mappings file is not changed on open; use Apply Recipe with the box ticked when you want the rules for good.

The default is a path to a file. If the file moves or is deleted, nothing is offered and the Apply Recipe dialog says the file is no longer where it was; browse for it, or remove it from the list.

Which One to Use

Situation	Use
Every project should open looking like the last one	A recipe, set as the default.
One layer name should always look one way	Remember Style. A recipe wins over it on the layers the recipe names.
One treatment reused on differently named layers	A style preset.
The whole office should recognize the same CAD names	Apply the office recipe with its rules box ticked, or share the rules file itself.