We value your input!
Please participate in Archicad 28 Home Screen and Tooltips/Quick Tutorials survey

Documentation
About Archicad's documenting tools, views, model filtering, layouts, publishing, etc.

TURN ON AND OFF LAYERS when plans are in layout book already

cocoloco
Expert

Like everyone else we have different layer set up for plumbing/electric/appliances etc... So we are placing into layouts the floor plan like 6x time. But first we have to turn on and off the layers and then place and make sure not to click side ways otherwise the view we saved previously will be removed ... It would be perfect if we can just import the view into layout, and then if we have to change the layers, we can do it there... and not going back and forward. Another thing that would save extreme time and be user-friendly... 

MacBook Pro, Sonoma: 2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7, Intel 16GB mem,
Archicad Solo 26 and 27 (in testing mode)
13 REPLIES 13
Karl Ottenstein
Moderator

I'm not following the way you explained the situation... it sounds like you are not using Views the way they are intended.  It should never be necessary to turn layers on and off to see what you want to see... that is what Layer Combinations are for.  Set them up once, and you're done.  For each of these plans that you want - plumbing, electric, etc - you would have different Views saved in the View Map, each using the Layer Combination needed to show what you want.  Finally, those Views are dragged onto the appropriate Layout sheets to create drawings.

 

If you discover something is not showing or is hidde, you would edit the Layer Combination that the View/Drawing is based on and all views and drawings using that combination would update.  Being able to update the layer visibility of an individual drawing contents (view) would change the associated layer combination of the View to "Custom" which is never really guarantees what will be displayed (it might be consistent, it might not be).  The settings for each View (again - every placed Drawing comes from a View) must "never" have "Missing" or "Custom" anywhere for reliable operation and output.

One of the forum moderators
AC 28 USA and earlier   •   macOS Sonoma 14.7.1, MacBook Pro M2 Max 12CPU/30GPU cores, 32GB

I do have layer combinations. My wish is I can switch them in layouts. 

MacBook Pro, Sonoma: 2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7, Intel 16GB mem,
Archicad Solo 26 and 27 (in testing mode)

You can right click the placed drawing and select "Modify source View Settings" to change the layer combination.  So, I'm not sure what more you would want to be able to do?

 

Screenshot 2024-03-27 at 5.21.53 PM.png

One of the forum moderators
AC 28 USA and earlier   •   macOS Sonoma 14.7.1, MacBook Pro M2 Max 12CPU/30GPU cores, 32GB

Let me try this again tomorrow. The thing is I have floor plan on 7 pages. The same angle of floor plan but want to use different layers set up view on each . So I placed the view on page 1. Then used copy paste for each page and at that time I was not able to adjust the layers setting on each page . I will try again tomorrow again and confirm. 

MacBook Pro, Sonoma: 2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7, Intel 16GB mem,
Archicad Solo 26 and 27 (in testing mode)

Karl explained it exactly as I would have in his first reply, which is the most efficient way to do what you are seeking to do. However, if you want to do it in a less effecient way, but still get the results you are requesting in the layout book, again Karl offers the correct procedure again.

 

Not surprising, he usually offers very practical solutions to questions asked, this is no acceptation.  

 

You really are doing yourself a favor in saving view-sets prior to placing your desired drawings into a layout sheet.

Robert Mariani
MARIANI design studio, PLLC
Architecture / Architectural Photography
www.robertmariani.com

Mac OSX 13.1
AC 24 / 25 / 26

To explain what Karl has told you a little more...

 

In the Navigator you have a 'Project map'.

In the project Map you have 'View Points' - only one for each storey (plan), elevation, section etc.

You can manually change the layer combination, scale, pen set, Graphic Override, etc. for these view points, but they will never remember the settings.

 

Then you have the "View Map' which is where you save 'Views' of the view points.

You can have multiple Views for each vie point, and they do remember the settings for the layer combination, scale, pen set, Graphic Override, etc.

So you can have a view for the floor plan, site plane, electrical plan, as many different views as you want.

 

You now place these Views on the Layouts as Drawings and they will remember the settings as stored in the Views.

If you need to update say the layers in a layer combination, you do that in the layer settings and all views using that combination will update automatically, and hence the layouts will update as well.

If you need to change the layer combination a view uses, then do that in the View Settings and again you layouts will update automatically to suit.

 

Barry.

 

One of the forum moderators.
Versions 6.5 to 27
i7-10700 @ 2.9Ghz, 32GB ram, GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB), Windows 10
Lenovo Thinkpad - i7-1270P 2.20 GHz, 32GB RAM, Nvidia T550, Windows 11

@cocoloco wrote:

Let me try this again tomorrow. The thing is I have floor plan on 7 pages. The same angle of floor plan but want to use different layers set up view on each . So I placed the view on page 1. Then used copy paste for each page and at that time I was not able to adjust the layers setting on each page . I will try again tomorrow again and confirm. 


The copy/paste is the problem ... if you work through what Barry, Robert and I have been saying...  by copying and pasting a drawing on multiple sheets, that drawing will always be the same because each drawing is linked to the same source view.  If you change the source view for the drawing, it will change all 7 placed drawings.

 

What you want (wanted) to do is to create 7 different  views of the floor plan ... where each view has a different layer combination, model view options etc etc... and then place each of those 7 views on the layouts (or relink placed drawings back to the proper views).

 

This is the most fundamental aspect of using Archicad to produce documentation and I encourage you to read more, and ask more questions until you understand view point -> view -> drawing completely with no doubts, no mystery.  Any less than 100% understanding will lead to problems in your documents.

One of the forum moderators
AC 28 USA and earlier   •   macOS Sonoma 14.7.1, MacBook Pro M2 Max 12CPU/30GPU cores, 32GB

I am aware and Berry is right. But my wish is to make it less time consuming and be able to do it in layouts if I make any mistake and also to maintain easily THE SAME angle because otherwise I have to redo and make sure to capture the same angle (again loosing time). I don’t know why I get so much backlash for wanting this feature. All I wished is to ask for this not sure why I get so much backlash with “workarounds”. Not everyone wants workarounds but wants flexibility. 

MacBook Pro, Sonoma: 2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7, Intel 16GB mem,
Archicad Solo 26 and 27 (in testing mode)

Ok will do tomorrow once I work in archicad again baby steps. Thank you. 

MacBook Pro, Sonoma: 2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7, Intel 16GB mem,
Archicad Solo 26 and 27 (in testing mode)