Create custom patterns and textures

Legends supports an extensive library of standard geological and geometric patterns, plus a selection of natural surface textures. These patterns and textures are stored as 16 and 256 color bitmaps in your product installation folder's "Legends" sub folder.

To add custom patterns and textures to the library, all you need to do is copy the custom bitmap files into this directory.

All system legend bitmap file names are prefixed by either p- (pattern) or t- (texture). You can use the same prefixes or use your own to help identify your custom patterns and textures if you like. The file name should describe the pattern or texture e.g. "p-siltstone A.bmp" or "t-red gravel.bmp".

Important: If you use custom patterns and textures in your legends, other users with access to your documents will need to update their Legends directory with your bitmaps.

There are a few rules to follow when creating texture bitmaps:

Patterns (p-*)

To create your own patterns, all you need is a basic bitmap editor, preferably one which offers a pixel grid display option. When designing patterns, you need to ensure that the pattern in the bitmap repeats smoothly when tiled. For example, the following pattern for Bedded Lava is created from a regular 16 x 12 repeat pattern:

The bitmap must be dimensioned in multiples of the basic repeat pattern - that is, 16 x 12 or 32 x 24 or 128 x 24 etc to give a continuous tiled effect:

The colour used to define the pattern should have an RGB value of 255-0-255. This special reserved colour is sensitive to changes in the line color selected in the legend when the bitmap is used as a "colored texture". To ignore the reserved colour and display B&W patterns, choose the "texture" fill style. Save these patterns as 16-colour bitmaps.

Coloured patterns (p-*)

You can introduce other colours into the pattern and use the reserved colour to vary the foreground or background to any one of the 72 colours in the legend palette including black and white. Other colours in the pattern are fixed. For example, consider the following coloured patterns:

These were produced using this 20 x 20 pixel grid:

The basic repeat pattern in this case is on a 10 x 10 grid. Save coloured patterns as 16 or 256 colour bitmaps.

Textures (t-*)

In addition to patterns, you can also create your own natural surface textures from digital photos or scanned images:

Texture images should be created with dimensions of 64 x 64 pixels or larger, and saved as 256 colour bitmaps. For best effect, images should be homogeneous in color, brightness and texture so that, when tiled, one edge blends smoothly into another: