having trouble with layers in civil 3d

[MKH-VB]

been using autocad for many years and have a great grasp of "regular" autocad.  I can't seem to get comfortable with the layering in c3d.  My issue: I have done some cross secitons and have a major grid and minor grid. In "regular" autocad, I could just select "layoff" from the layer tools and select, by entity, the layer I wanted to turn off. Now with the section views, I can select the layer I want turned off, and the entire thing goes off. Just curiouis on how others are handling this. 

[Jeff_M · Accepted solution]

Use layman or the style to change the layer visibility of the subcomponents. Yes, it took a long time to break myself of trying to use LAYFRZ or LAYOFF. The Sincpac-C3D SPLayFrz, SPLayOff, & SPLayIso commands help a lot, but don't work with all C3D objects.

[Neilw_05]

You are encountering one of the downsides to the style paradigm. A section view is a special C3D object just as are surfaces, alignments, profile views, etc.

The components of these objects are not individually selectable. Thus you cannot use the layer Freeze/Thaw/Off/On tools to control the display of the components such as the grid lines, because when you select any part of the Section View object, the entire object is selected and it's layer is what gets affected.

The only ways to control the display of the components is to turn them on or off in the object style or in the layer manager. This typically requires opening the style to see what layers are used and then finding the layers in the layer manager to turn them off and on. It is a cumbersome workflow.

[neilyj666]

As Jeff says, styles are the key to the visibility of objects in c3d. Most users have several styles in which certain components are off but the on/off is only achievable via styles.

[MKH-VB]

thanks everyone...still can't get used to the styles. Seems a bit cumbersome to me.

[neilyj666]

Yes, they can be both very useful and very longwinded and a PITA when using xrefs.

[MKH-VB]

.....and my project usually live and die by the xref!