we currently are coloring in a preliminary design plan and putting planting in that same drawing to allow us to toggle color on and off for site color and plants. After we create that exhibit someone will inevitably want a take off for areas, now we begin to question if we used the right tool, should we have started with concept graphics, no because we were just lookin for color... oh well!

We then copy all the outlines of the site color and export them as a block (that we then explode) or group of lines into another drawing and begin hatching those outlines as concept graphics or crude ref notes so that we can get a square foot take off or a volume and create an exhibit for the take-offs. Now with any luck we get approval and need to go into working drawing and now all the concept graphics need to be converted to ref notes with specific callouts and details, ideally each hatched area could act like a plant block (plan, color, and 3D) where you assign the color, the concept graphic information and the ref note hatch & description and toggle between them as you progress through the project that would be awesome, otherwise a convert button that if you click on a site color it would ask you what information you want to assign this color and do you want to convert all hatches with similar color? The only issue might be in highly detailed objects like cars or people that might have 4 or five colors you might have that color in those that you would want to ignore but otherwise we color all our concrete one color, all asphalt a separate color, and soil or mulch different as well so the computer would be able to diffferentiate those easily.

just my two cents!

Bob

One quick note:  We added to our Match Properties tool, so when you select a Site Color as the destination object for a RefNote Area, it asks if you wish to apply to all areas of that color.  Match Properties should also help with some of the other tasks you describe.  Alternately, our new Transform tool currently has only one use, transforming a Concept Plant to a Production Plant -- but it is planned to be able to transform all instances of any Land F/X object to another one.  So we definitely have our thumb on the pulse of what you're doing!

--J