Community
Civil 3D Forum
Welcome to Autodesk’s Civil 3D Forums. Share your knowledge, ask questions, and explore popular AutoCAD Civil 3D topics.
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Any way to get layer settings (multiple nested XREFs) to be honored correctly?

12 REPLIES 12
SOLVED
Reply
Message 1 of 13
Sinc
752 Views, 12 Replies

Any way to get layer settings (multiple nested XREFs) to be honored correctly?

We have an area that is being dramatically replatted, for the third time in several areas.  We are required to do an "As Platted" vs. "As Replatted" overview page.

 

All the core linework is in our base drawing.  I *thought* I could create an "As Platted" DWG (with an XREF to our base drawing), and display/freeze layers in that drawing appropriately to show the "As Platted" conditions.  Then create an "As Replatted" DWG (also with an XREF to the base drawing), and freeze/display layers in that drawing to appropriately show the "As Replatted" conditions.  Then I had planned to XREF both the "As Platted" and "As Replatted" drawings into yet another drawing, where I could show them side-by-side on one layout.

 

However, it doesn't work.  I went to a lot of trouble to get all the layer settings correct in both the "As Platted" and "As Replatted" DWGs, but as soon as I try to XREF them into another DWG, all the layer settings get reset to whatever I have set in my base drawing.

 

I suppose I could bind the base drawing into both the "As Platted" and "As Replatted" DWG, but I really hate to do that, since things might still change before we're done.  I suppose another option would be to reduce the "As Platted" and "As Replatted" drawings to DWF, and use DWF underlays.  That might be better, because if something changes, I can just recreate the DWF files.

 

Anyone else have any better ideas?

 

I'd never realized before that Autocad doesn't honor layer settings correctly when there are multiple levels of nested XREFs involved.  Kind of caught me by surprise.

Sinc
12 REPLIES 12
Message 2 of 13
Jeff_M
in reply to: Sinc


@Sinc wrote:

I'd never realized before that Autocad doesn't honor layer settings correctly when there are multiple levels of nested XREFs involved.  Kind of caught me by surprise.



I'm almost positive it used to work like this, because I'm also pretty sure that I've used your exact procedure in the distant past. I run into the same issues during plan production. I have all the layers in my base drawing set how I want, but then I have to go into each new sheet and reset them. A real PITA.

Jeff_M, also a frequent Swamper
EESignature
Message 3 of 13
Sinc
in reply to: Sinc

Well, the DWF underlay route seems to be a no-go.  It looks great on-screen, exactly the way I want it, but when I print it, all lines in the DWF get reset to the same lineweight.  Both DWFs have every line at exactly the same lineweight.

Sinc
Message 4 of 13
Sinc
in reply to: Sinc

HAH!  PDF Underlay works, and gets the results I need, without needing to bind my drawings.  That still gives me the flexibility I think I may need for up-coming revisions, and then all I have to do is recreate the PDFs as revisions happen (I hope).

 

So much for the vaunted DWF format...

Sinc
Message 5 of 13
Joe-Bouza
in reply to: Sinc

Isn't VISITANT in charge of that?

 

Nested xrefs can be convoluted for sure. Have you tried renaming the base xref in the xref manager to like "base01" then attaching the next plat? Perhaps seeing the same xref name is confusing it

Thank you

Joseph D. Bouza, P.E. (one of 'THOSE' People)

HP Z210 Workstation
Intel Xeon CPU E31240 @ 3.30 Hz
12 GB Ram


Note: Its all Resistentialism, so keep calm and carry on

64 Bit Win10 OS
Message 6 of 13
Joe-Bouza
in reply to: Sinc

I thoght for sure that would work - I've used it in the past but no go

Thank you

Joseph D. Bouza, P.E. (one of 'THOSE' People)

HP Z210 Workstation
Intel Xeon CPU E31240 @ 3.30 Hz
12 GB Ram


Note: Its all Resistentialism, so keep calm and carry on

64 Bit Win10 OS
Message 7 of 13
Joe-Bouza
in reply to: Sinc

seems like you'll have to vplayer the sheet file?

Thank you

Joseph D. Bouza, P.E. (one of 'THOSE' People)

HP Z210 Workstation
Intel Xeon CPU E31240 @ 3.30 Hz
12 GB Ram


Note: Its all Resistentialism, so keep calm and carry on

64 Bit Win10 OS
Message 8 of 13
Sinc
in reply to: Joe-Bouza

This is a pretty convoluted area, and I have no interest in redoing a whole bunch of work via VPLAYER settings.  The PDF underlay is working just fine, so I'm going to let it go at that.  Otherwise, I'd spend another several hours redoing all the layer settings I already did.

 

Things like this get really frustrating...  I wish Autodesk would stop pushing out these yearly releases, and concentrate on getting at least ONE version working well.  It seems every release breaks as many things as it fixes.

Sinc
Message 9 of 13
Lisa_Pohlmeyer
in reply to: Sinc

I use this feature all the time.  My VISRETAIN variable is set to 1 and I save a layer state for my VP.  I then restore that layer state to any other VPs that are the same.  Am I missing something?



Lisa Pohlmeyer
Civil 3D User
Website | Facebook | Twitter

Message 10 of 13
TCARCAMO78
in reply to: Sinc

Hmm that's interesting. I think I would have tried attaching the drawings thru task pane in the Planning and Analysis workspace. I honestly don't know if that would work since I haven't tried but it should. If you make changes to any of the attached drawings you should see that changes. In the display manager you can change the coloring and linetypes with queries. Just a thought.

 

Tony

CAD Manager

www.tonyscivil3dworld.blogspot.com

 

Tony Carcamo
CAD Manager
www.tonyscivil3dworld.blogspot.com
Message 11 of 13
thepworth
in reply to: Lisa_Pohlmeyer

I would suspect VISRETAIN as well, but how does it work with nested xrefs? I've never tried liking A->B->C to see if the "intermediate" settings in B affect how A appears in C....

 

Sinc:

 

I suppose that taking a layer snapshot that you can subsequently import into another drawing gets screwed up because of the xref naming convention.

 

Glad you found a way to make it work, but still doesn't seem like the best solution 😞

Message 12 of 13
Sinc
in reply to: thepworth

Yes...  The basic problem is that I have a base drawing, call it A.  A is referenced into B1 and B2.  Then I try referencing both B1 and B2 into C.  Since both B1 and B2 reference A, it seems to be causing problems.  In drawing C, everything that comes from A takes on the layer settings from A, ignoring what I did in B1 and B2.

 

As Jeff said, I *think* this used to work.  Not sure why it seems to be failing for me in C3D 2012.  The PDF underlay solution is the only one I've been able to come up with that works.

Sinc
Message 13 of 13
Neilw_05
in reply to: Sinc

I haven't studied this post in detail so forgive me if it's already been covered.

 

From my experience VISERETAIN is a global variable, meaning that if you set VISRETAIN to zero in any host drawing, the display of all source drawings will be controled by the source drawings. So if you change the color, linetype of freeze/thaw state in source drawing A, those changes will be reflected in the host drawing C.

 

Now if you ref A into B and A+B into C, you will not get the layer states from Ref A as it appears in ref B. You will get the layer states as shown in source A. It is a limitation of Autocad. This is one of those cases where Microstation has an advantage.

Neil Wilson (a.k.a. neilw)
AEC Collection/C3D 2024, LDT 2004, Power Civil v8i SS1
WIN 10 64 PRO

http://www.sec-landmgt.com

Can't find what you're looking for? Ask the community or share your knowledge.

Post to forums  

Rail Community


Autodesk Design & Make Report