AutoCAD Civil 3D

[#1]

OK, I've been working in C3D for about 5 yrs now, and one thing that drives me absolutely nuts about it is how to get the correct layers to display when plotting different sheets out of the same drawing, regardless of the layer state of my model.  I worked in Terramodel for about 5 years prior to coming back to AutoCAD and became spoiled by the ease with which layers displayed on different sheets in the same drawing.  You assigned a layer state to the viewport and that viewport always plotted that way.  It didn't matter what layers were on or off, frozen or thawed in the model view, once you jumped over to the sheet it always looked the same once you set it up.  In C3D I've tried viewport overrides, jumping into the viewport and setting the layers then saving the layer state...  All sorts of different approaches, but I've never found anything that really works.  My projects are typically small enough that I have all of my sheets in the same drawing but want different layer settings on different sheets.  Any input on how other people handle this would be appreciated.  (I guess this maybe should have gone on the vanilla ACAD board, but whatever)

[#2]

The key is to not use the global freeze and off, but only the viewport freeze. What is needed is a Model Tab freeze that would be similar to VP freeze so you don't have to use the global freeze/off to hide layers while working on the model tab.

I agree that it would be best if a viewport would automatically return to its own layer state regardless of what you might have done while on the model tab.  Wish list!

All this is moot if you use keep your sheets in a drawing separate from the design file.

[#3]

---

tcorey wrote:

The key is to not use the global freeze and off, but only the viewport freeze. What is needed is a Model Tab freeze that would be similar to VP freeze so you don't have to use the global freeze/off to hide layers while working on the model tab.

I agree that it would be best if a viewport would automatically return to its own layer state regardless of what you might have done while on the model tab.  Wish list!

All this is moot if you use keep your sheets in a drawing separate from the design file.

---

So are you saying that to make this work you never use the global freeze?  That still doesn't address layers that might be off in model, but you want shown in paper, does it?

As far as sheets in a separate dwg from the design file, how would that make any difference?  I guess I'm not following.  You xref the design file?  Doesn't the xref still want to update and you have the same problem if you've been in the design file monkeying around with layer visibility?