I xreference architectural base drawings and draw the MEP on top for a living. On small jobs I may have room to put the lighting and power on a single sheet. If I xreference the architectural base drawing and copy it, I can not have the ceiling grid on in one and off on the other Xref. This is because they have the same layer name.
To get around this, I xreference the base drawing and change its name in the Xref Manager by typing (in this case) the word Power in the Reference Name field.
Then I Xreference the base drawing again and rename this second version to Lighting. The effect is the one base drawing has been referenced twice but with different names resulting in separate layer names.
This gives me separate layer control of each.
Your case may not be lighting and power, that's okay, because it will work for what ever you need.
13 comments:
It would be nice if XREF knew about layer states in the referenced drawing. Then you might not need this kludge.
I hate this!
Architects do this to us all the time then when they send me their file, which I need to xref in, I end up with a mess, because I don't need to see half of the layers that they need to show, I have to freeze all of the layers that I don't need twice (at least) and this causes problems when we get updated backgrounds, the layers that were previously frozen will get turned on again somehow.
You can retrieve layer information from the referenced drawing if your VISRETAIN system variable is set to zero. I prefer the drawing i am in to have the layer control, so my VISRETAIN is set to 1.
Yes, but you currently can't access the saved layer states in referenced files.
IMO, this thwarts the hypothetical ideal of having a single project model file and sheets being many different views of that single file, because layer control is so cumbersome.
But.. there are other reasons why a single model file is not practical or maybe even very useful.
I hear what you are saying, but you can set up layer state in the drawing to control layers in the Xref. It doesn't feel like too much effort to me.
It is indeed not much effort, for one sheet, one time. But imagine a real production environment, where you have a sheet set full of drawings.
Suppose a change is made in the color or name of a layer in one discipline, say electrical. Suppose you have a dozen electrical sheets and visretain is enabled. You then have to go to each sheet, turn off visretain, reload, and perhaps also update layer states.
Now imagine having to do for every single change, for every discipline, always worrying if the sheet display is up to date. This really thwarts and complicates the one model, many sheet views concept that has been promoted by AutoCAD in recent years.
XREF needs to get the capability of loading layer states from the model file so that changes there, in one place, will be quickly and painlessly reflected in all relevant sheets.
I assume you are using multiple viewports. You can turn off the xref layers separately in each individual viewport. Then all you need to do is copy down xref and change the settings in the viewport. If you double-click the viewport it opens the viewport and retains the viewport overrides and you can work with ceiling grid on or off depending on how you have it setup.
Multiple is another solution, and a good one.
Someone else has the same idea, need to be able to load layer states!
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=123742
It is up for vote now:
http://www.augi.com/autocad/ballot.asp
Similar Idea for viewports and layer states up for vote now
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=123742
http://www.augi.com/autocad/ballot.asp
I remember using a LISP command to clear all the XREF references from the plot scale window. Can anyone tell me where to get it?
Thanks
ppivko@dfgibson.com
I put this (command "-scalelistedit" "RESET" "Y" "EXIT") in my acaddoc.lsp to reset the scale list when opening a drawing.
Me too! Nice one Chris.
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