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Unnecessary layers...

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Message 1 of 31
deltacoolguy
709 Views, 30 Replies

Unnecessary layers...

Unnecessary layers...

 

This is probably more of a vent, as I believe there is no perfect solution.  At least what would be perfect in my mind.

 

Anyway, I hate having unused layers.  I hate having to scroll through pages and pages of layers in the layer dialog box whenever I want to do something.  It slows me down.  I prefer to have my drawings "clean", and have layers that are only actually being used at the moment.

 

I could easily do this in Land Desktop by purging unused layers, but C3D will not allow this as so many layers are theoretically being 'used' by various styles even though they're not really being used.

 

Layer filters can help some, but only to a small degree.  Does anybody else share my frustration in this area?  If so, have you found any solutions?

 

Thanks.

Windows 10-64 Pro
8GB RAM (Home)
12GB RAM (Work)
AutoCAD Civil 3D 2019
30 REPLIES 30
Message 21 of 31
Neilw_05
in reply to: troma

Yes child styles would be a big help in this scenario, though it would still require a lot more management overhead. Alas even that isn't available for many objects, including surfaces.

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
Message 22 of 31
rl_jackson
in reply to: Neilw_05

Yeah it really does make you wonder why the programs provided the ability to do child styles for some objects and not all objects.

Rick Jackson
Survey CAD Technician VI

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Message 23 of 31
jmayo-EE
in reply to: AllenJessup

Can't seem to find a link for that white paper RL. Any chance you have one or a few choice words for Google?

John Mayo

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Message 24 of 31
rl_jackson
in reply to: jmayo-EE

Here you go John


Rick Jackson
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Message 25 of 31
rl_jackson
in reply to: jmayo-EE

There was also, another article about 5-6 years ago or so, that I read advocating the Layer 0 concept, I tried it and it just seemed to work well. I cold not locate that one online.

Rick Jackson
Survey CAD Technician VI

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Message 26 of 31
jmayo-EE
in reply to: rl_jackson

Thanks RL!

John Mayo

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Message 27 of 31
deltacoolguy
in reply to: rl_jackson


@Anonymous wrote:

Here you go John


I'll read this later this weekend.  Looks interesting.

 

I've tried the Layer 0 thing before, and never really took to it.  I mean, I can see some advantages, but for me the disadvantages were too many.  I always feel like I lose too much flexibility.  Layer control, IMO, was simple, straight forward, and most importantly "not broken".  With the introduction of styles it became bloated.  Sure some of the new ways or workarounds can be cool in their own right, and I use some of them, but they don't really provide the flexibility and simplicity that I'm looking for most of the time.

 

Maybe I should rephrase my original intent and question:  How can I set up a layer filter that will filter out layers that are "used" (note the quote marks) but empty?  In other words, layers that are assigned in a style, and hence show as being currently used, but in reality have nothing on them at the moment.

 

Windows 10-64 Pro
8GB RAM (Home)
12GB RAM (Work)
AutoCAD Civil 3D 2019
Message 28 of 31
_Hathaway
in reply to: deltacoolguy

I really share the OPs frustration also. Sure there are layer filters and we use them regularly.
Its just a pain to have 100s of layers that never ever get used stuck in each and every drawing fiile. It would be nice if the layers nested in the unused styles somehow were created when the style that needs the specific layer was used instead of nesting 100s of layers that 'might' be used.
Message 29 of 31
jmayo-EE
in reply to: _Hathaway

This is why we fixed our template. We use to have that fustration but we made the template work with layer 0 and we have full layer control for all C3D objects and every layer can be removed if not real drawing data exists. 😉

 

I don't know what other negatives there could be besides the time required to fix the template and it doesn't have to be done in one day.

 

John Mayo

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Message 30 of 31
DaveM
in reply to: jmayo-EE

My concern with the 0 method comes from the fact that alot of the times our work is for another company who does not have our version of autocad. I believe when you export out to an older version, it basically explodes everything, wouldnt that put all of the layers involved in a surface on the layer that the surface is on instead of a major layer, minor layer, triangles etc?
Thanks,
Dave

Civil 3D 2013
HP Z400 Workstation
6GB of RAM
296GB HDD
ATI FirePro V5700(FireGL)
Win 7 Home Professional
Please use Kudos Where Deserved



Message 31 of 31
jmayo-EE
in reply to: DaveM

It works for us. We don't ship triangles. We send an xml surface and contours for any surface. We try to avoid a situation where another company is rebuilding the surface we created for them.

 

The articles posted above tell you that this can all be set up with a hybrid of the methods so if you had a handfull of layers you wanted imbeded it is possible.

 

Now it is a lot of work to rebuild a template like this and this would be an issue for me as well. If this were the case you could consider doing it in small steps and slowly integrate the new template.

John Mayo

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