topic Re: Draw Order of Lines in AutoCAD Forum

Draw Order of Lines

jgeldmyer — Fri, 18 Nov 2016 17:50:54 GMT

Hello,

I am currently working on an existing drawing. Whenever I draw a new line or polyline, initially the recently created object appears in the front, but the moment I zoom in/out or move my view, it immediately sends the line to the back. I have tried playing with the sys var draworderctl but this did not solve the issue. Using CDORDER did not do the trick either. I also tried sending everything to the back and then drawing my lines, without luck. It seems like the file has some sort of preference that all new lines are immediately sent to the back, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how/why. I am wondering if anyone else has run into this and has a workable solution. It is rather obnoxious to spend this much time searching for my desired line behind all of the other existing lines. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, and I apologize if this has been asked before. I did a fair amount of reseraching online before deciding to come to the forum for some outside help.

Thanks,

Jeff

Re: Draw Order of Lines

Alfred.NESWADBA — Sat, 19 Nov 2016 13:16:05 GMT

Hi,

>> initially the recently created object appears in the front

That is only valid for 2-dimensional items. That is not correct in case you are working in 3D-space with 3D-objects.

>> I have tried playing with the sys var draworderctl

Yep, DRAWORDERCTL is one of the sysvars, should be set to 3 by default.

Another important variable is SORTENTS, which should be 127

If both variables are set to the values I showed then please try first the same actions in a new drawing (if that works use copy & paste to get your existing geometry to the new drawing). If that does not work please show us your steps using Autodesk Screencast (free download: >>>click<<<) so we can see what you are exactly doing and upload your dwg file.

- alfred -

Re: Draw Order of Lines

jgeldmyer — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 14:25:59 GMT

I'm still not sure whats causing the issue in the original file, since the error was occuring even with the discussed sys vars being set correctly. Pasting the geometry into a new file worked after I drew a couple of lines in the file initially. Thanks for the help. The file was received from a surveyor, so you never know what settings are used in the process!

Thanks again,

Jeff

Re: Draw Order of Lines

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Jan 2018 10:54:25 GMT

Hi, Don't know how, but I just had to set back to the 2dwireframe visual style and everything return to normal.

Re: Draw Order of Lines

robert06 — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 07:27:23 GMT

With hardware acceleration "on" new 2d objects appear behind existing objects (hatches etc) with DRAWORDERCTL set to 3 (default value), and are displayed in front only after regen.
Setting DRAWORDERCTL to 2 appears to fix the problem.