topic Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others in Project data & BIM

Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Anonymous — Tue, 30 May 2023 10:43:50 GMT

I have a building with 3 levels.
i really want to have certain LAYERS turned on in 2 and turned off in the other.

It seems when i turn off a LAYER, it turns off in every layer and even my Perspective View.

any help would be super.
Thank you.
Ian

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 08:09:01 GMT

As far as I know you cannot display layers like that. Instead you will have to create separate layers to divide up the floors (ie only first floor objects go into the first floor object layer and so on) and separate layer combos to achieve what you want.

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 08:13:04 GMT

In plan views, this is fairly straight forward - save view of each floor with the specific layers turned off or on as required.

In any 3d, including elevations, sections, 3d document etc, the easiest way is probably to set up a separate layer for specific items on each layer that you can turn on or off as required (e.g. WALLS_level 1, WALLS_level 2, WALLS_level 3 etc.)

If you don't mind seeing the outline only, you can always create a new material with full transparency to assign to elements you want to see through.

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

owen — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 08:14:00 GMT

Yes thats how Layers work .. they are global.

You need to use Layer Combinations with saved Views to control the visibility on different levels, possibly also introducing additional layers to give you more control over specific elements (e.g you could have 'Beam Steel' and 'Beam Steel 3D' layers to separate elements you want to see in plan views from those only seen in Sections/Elevations/3D)

cheers,

owen

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Ernest Atanasiu — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 21:30:37 GMT

STOP using the Project Map for Construction Documentation!
It's purpose is MODELLING!

To answer your question: In View Map use Layer Combinations.
For layer Combination 1 use whatever layers you need, for layer Combination 2 use other layers, and so on...

and
Don't use additional layers that have the same elements! (like owen said). MODEL AS BUILT! Imagine having to extract a quantity list from a model that contains 3 or more beams in 3 or more layers...

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 23:26:40 GMT

zeropointreference wrote:
Instead you will have to create separate layers to divide up the floors (ie only first floor objects go into the first floor object layer and so on) and separate layer combos to achieve what you want.

This is not necessary. Do not do it this way unless you are sure there is some compelling reason to do so (usually for export to something that doesn't have stories).

As others have pointed out, use views for different drawings and layer combos.

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 11:36:42 GMT

The way I was reading his question was he was partially asking how to display the 3D model while showing a layer on story 2 but having that layer off for the other two floors (when he mentions perspective).

I thought turning on or off a layer in 3D view affects all floors and which is why I suggest that you have to put stuff on separate layers if you want this kind of display.

Or is it possible to setup a 3D model with different layer settings for each floor at the same time?

Or maybe I just read everything completely wrong and it's just a simple matter of setting up views for the different floors and navigating that way instead of constantly setting layers so the current display is correct.

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Ernest Atanasiu — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 08:35:59 GMT

zeropointreference wrote:
Or is it possible to setup a 3D model with different layer settings for each floor at the same time?

By 3D model are you referring to a 3D view (like a perspective) or the entire model?

Actually it is possible for both! And it is possible to have different layer settings for the same floor at the same time!

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 09:49:55 GMT

uisanata wrote:
zeropointreference wrote:
Or is it possible to setup a 3D model with different layer settings for each floor at the same time?
By 3D model are you referring to a 3D view (like a perspective) or the entire model?

Actually it is possible for both! And it is possible to have different layer settings for the same floor at the same time!

If you know the answer, why not elaborate?

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Ernest Atanasiu — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 10:11:51 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb_YYU3O_Ow

There was a better tutorial by Eric Bobrow, but I can't find it right now.

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:06:46 GMT

I made a little project trying to do what was in the video but I can't get it to show all floors with selective layers per floor in 3D.

I made two layers. Walls and Balls. There are three stories. A set of walls and a ball per floor. I cloned the stories in the View map, change 2nd floor's layer setting to only walls. In 2D if I go through the views it works. But in 3D, the layers are universal and either all the balls are visible or not.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong still?

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Ernest Atanasiu — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:20:53 GMT

Why do you need a 3D view?
Is it for documentation? Then you save a 3D Document, place it in the view map, assign it a layer combination and you're done.

Is it for a 3D view of the house? Then render it and you're done.

Do you just need to visualize the model?

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:41:16 GMT

This all pertains to the OP who asked how to show his model in perspective 3D view with one layer shut off for the 2nd floor but not the 1st or 3rd floor.

As I have said, I still don't think this is possible. It seems the layers are universal and you can't selectively show different layers combos per floor in the model, while you're trying to model.

Maybe I'm just being really dense here.

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Barry Kelly — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 01:32:00 GMT

zeropointreference wrote:
This all pertains to the OP who asked how to show his model in perspective 3D view with one layer shut off for the 2nd floor but not the 1st or 3rd floor.

As I have said, I still don't think this is possible. It seems the layers are universal and you can't selectively show different layers combos per floor in the model, while you're trying to model.

Maybe I'm just being really dense here.

With one set of layers common on all floors then this can only show separate layer sets in each floor on the floor plans only.
In the 3D view the layers are universal so will be on or off for all floors.

The only way it can be done in 3D is to have separate sets of layers for each storey (which defeats the need for storeys in the first place but that is neither here nor there).
i.e "walls_1", "walls_2" & "walls_3".
Then in 3D "walls_1" & "walls_3" can be turned on and "walls_2" turned off.

Barry.

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Ernest Atanasiu — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 08:41:03 GMT

zeropointreference wrote:
As I have said, I still don't think this is possible. It seems the layers are universal and you can't selectively show different layers combos per floor in the model, while you're trying to model.

Maybe I'm just being really dense here.

I really don't think you understood the purpose of the View Map, how layer combinations work and how you should structure your model in order to achieve different documentation sets from a model.

maybe this will help: the view map and the layers

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 21:50:06 GMT

@uisanata

I was talking strictly in the model space. That's why views and the resultant advantages of them won't matter. In model space, 2D you can separate the stories and have different layers visible. In 3D model space, layers are universal and are either on or off.

I made a little project to test it because being able to selectively show layers per floor in 3D model space is advantageous to me. I would post it but I can only get the file down to 650k and the largest file you can post here is 256k. But its easy enough to do.

Delete all your layers and views. Make two layers, wall and slab (my original experiment was balls but for simplicity sake...). Create three layer combos, all, wall, and slab. Create three floors. On each floor, draw a wall and a slab and place them on their respective layers. Go to the view map and clone the story folder. Now open up the 2nd floor settings and set the layer combo to wall.

Now, if you go through the views, in 2D, this will work. But if you are in either the 1st or 3rd floor when you start 3D, all the layers will be on. If you start 3D from the 2nd floor, only the wall layer will be visible and the slab layer for all the stories will be shut off. Mind you I'm only talking about the area where you place objects and draw lines and cut stuff and model this and label that. I've never set up a 3D document before like that, but I'll trust you that it can be done there. But it seems in the model space AC can't and it really is a limitation of AC as the experiment is showing.

The first pic show 3D started from the 3rd floor by navigating there from the cloned folder in the view map. The second pic shows 3D started from the 2nd floor by navigating there from the cloned folder. See how it's all or nothing?

But I'm still willing to accept there is a way to do it and it's evading me.

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 21:50:48 GMT

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 23:18:27 GMT

zeropointreference wrote:
...But I'm still willing to accept there is a way to do it and it's evading me.

There is a way but not in the 3D window which is a single viewpoint and thus only one layer combo at a time.

You can set up a camera (or isometric) view of the model and use this to create views for each floor in 3D (using the 3D filter). Each of these views can have a different layer combination assigned and they can then be superimposed on a layout. This can also be done with 3D documents if you want to annotate the drawings.

It is also a neat way to do a vertically exploded view of the stories.

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 01:39:18 GMT

Has the use of 'selection sets' with the 'Selections' palette been considered yet?

In combination with the Find & Select tool and the marquee, go through each of the 2d floorplans and select everything that you would like to appear in 3d. Save the elements selected on each storey as an individual selection set in the 'Selections' palette.

Turn on all the layers and go into the 3d window. In the 'Selections' palette double click on each of the saved selections in turn; this will cumulatively select all the elements previously selected in the floorplans.

With all the required elements selected, press F5 to view only these elements in the 3d window, and save it as a view.

Unfortunately, a selection set will reselect only the elements originally selected. Any new elements subsequently added afterwards will not appear automatically, so you will need to create a new selection set with the original and new elements added. This could be a bit of a maintenance issue perhaps, but better than nothing?

This also brings up the obvious question of why you can't modify or at least overwrite a selection set after it has been created! A new wish perhaps?

Re: Turning off layers in one LEVEL and not on the others

Ernest Atanasiu — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 08:19:22 GMT

I clearly understood what you are trying to show me. And it's not possible in the Project Map. All views in the Project Map (including a 3D view) are single viewpoints with no layer combination whatsoever.

But I was asking you why do you need those combinations? Are you creating your documentation in the Project Map?

Here's how I think you should do the combination you requested (see pics)
I did it with 3D Views, if you want different viewpoints, use the camera instead.