Did You Know...About the AutoCAD SETBYLAYER Command?

[#1]

The Situation:

You receive a drawing from another user/department, such as an exported CAD file from Revit. You download the drawing and then set the layer colors and visibility based on the CAD Standards for your project. Unfortunately, some content does not show the correct colors, linetypes, etc.

This image shows the received drawing with no layer color changes.

This next image shows how the drawing looks after changing all layer colors to color 1 (red). Compare this image with the previous image. Notice that the hatch objects and elevator still show their original color (yellow, blue, and purple) despite the layer color change. This is because the objects have forced colors set in their properties.

The Resolution:

Use the SETBYLAYER command to reset the properties of objects in the drawing to ByLayer.

The Workflow:

1. Open your copy of the AutoCAD drawing that you received.

2. Thaw, turn layers on and unlock all layers in the drawing.
3. With no objects selected, type SETBYLAYER and then press Enter.

4. Review the active settings at the command line. See the Instructions for Changing Settings below if you want to change the active settings.

5. Select the objects you want to modify or type ALL and press Enter.

6. After selecting the objects, confirm the number of objects selected and press Enter.

7. You will then be asked if you want to change the ByBlock properties to ByLayer. The default response if you press Enter is Yes.

8. You will then be asked if you want to include blocks. The default response if you press Enter is Yes.

9. Confirm that the content in the drawing is now correctly showing the properties based on the current layer state.
   
10. Use the Layer Previous command (LAYERP) to reset the layer state to the CAD Standards for your project and save the drawing.

Instructions for Changing Settings:

1. Before selecting the objects for this command, type S and press Enter.
   
   
   
2. In the SetByLayer Settings dialog, uncheck any properties you do not want to change to ByLayer and click OK. The options available to change are Color, Linetype, Lineweight, Material, Plot Style (if available), and Transparency.
   
   
   
3. Continue using the command by selecting objects, as noted in Step 5 above.