Where Did You Get Your Layers?

[James Murray]

Do you use NCS layers? Did you (or your office) make your layers up? Did a consultant or training person help you set them up?

Have you had life-saving experiences connected with the use of NCS? Have you had near-death experiences associated with not using NCS?

We use a consultant-started (hi Matt), home grown system, whose general scheme has not changed since 5.1. It works very well for us, we're used to it, it's flexible, and we haven't had big problems with other disciplines.

The look and feel of NCS layers bugs me quite a bit, if it's still permitted to have an opinion about such things. Why can't ACAD accept spaces and lowercase instead of us having to accept not accepting spaces and lowercase? Never mind.

Still, I'm generally in favor of standards, willing to sacrifice some freedom and individuality in order to be clear, consistent, and easy to work with. I also think that AC users need to work harder to get along precisely because we're not part of the monoculture, not unlike a certain long-in-single-digit-market-share personal computer company.

Looking very far ahead, I am considering moving to NCS when we revise our standards for AC9. As with any standards change, the benefits have to outweigh the transition costs. Right now overhauling layers is prohibitive because of the limitations of the layer management interface. Any overhaul would be contingent on the layer tools being vastly improved in AC9.

Unless somebody out there can convince me it's worth it even at the prohibitive cost level. What's your experience with this issue? Are the standards truly standard yet?

PS, You can have my pen settings when you pry them from my cold dead fingers.

[Petros Ioannou]

Quite a big topic opened! Being a european citizen and trying to find my way into the world layer chaos (ISO, ANSI,NCS etc) the only thing I found was that most if not all layering systems provided by organizations were 2d (mostly autocad) based. This leads to a layering systems that are partially incombatible with Archicad (five layers for a window is of no use in AC).So I think that standards should move to new directions with the increasing BIM industry and the object technology that AC uses.

[Anonymous]

I voted "Other, discuss" because I am one of those consultants who has helped others (hi James) set up their layer systems.

Presently I am steering people toward adapting the NCS to their needs. It is much improved over the AIA guidelines on which it is based. It still has the AutoCAD-centric flavor and is not really tuned to the Virtual Building process, but I have found it reasonably easy to adapt and still keep to the intent of the system. I think there is a significant advantage to using the standard as long as it can be done without compromising your process.

Keep in mind that the NCS layers are guidelines and are unlikely to be adopted to the letter by a majority of firms. So there will always be some degree of translation needed. It is useful to stick with the intent of the system since this helps make it more familiar to more users which will ultimately make things easier for all of us.


James,

I, for one, can't see any reason for you to change your layering before better tools become available. The adaptations that I make to the NCS are to get it to work like your system, so there is no gain there. For file exchange compatibility you can always set up an NCS DWG translator to map them. But, I haven't seen that many consultants adopting the NCS layers yet, so I don't think there is much there either.

[Anonymous]

Since I am rather new at this and was looking for a quick way to get productive, I ended up using the free templates (along with standards and layer settings) that were put out by Rex Maximillian (www.maxats.com). I have since modified them slightly, but haven't had the time for a full-out customization. Maybe after I take a closer look at the NCS... ?

[tsturm]

Our office recently took a project and renamed all the layers to the standard of NCS/Uniformat system. A for Architectural, C for Civil, P for Plumbing and etc....

We would this to be a faster way to find the Architectural elements after we have imported a consultant's drawings, such as surveyor.

Our system prior was working fine, but now we can find A-Wall layers faster from the C-Walls.

It has also helped us on this project to separate out the different walls such as A-Wall-Ext, A-Wall-Int-Bear, A-Wall-Int-Non, A-Wall-Int-Knee

HTH

[fuzzytnth3]

Our system is based on cisfb system but amended to have a descriptive word as well as the reference number in the layer name.

Main reason we use this sytem is that most Product selector catalogues in the UK index the products using the same system so you quickly learn that External walls are 21 for example. The cisfb system uses reference letters for consultants as well so all our layer names are prefixed with A and imported data from say the structural engineer are prefixed S

So a wall drawn by us would have the layer name A-21-Ext-Wall

[Miquel Garcia]

Where can I find information about NCS layers?

[Anonymous]

There are NCS templates included in the US localization. I don't know if there are copyright or other issues about getting them in Barcelona, but I'm pretty sure there aren't. Perhaps Graphisoft should post the templates for download.

[Petros Ioannou]

there is inside Program files/Archicadx.x/ArchiCAD Templates/DXF-DWG Layer Templates a template named AIA_Long_Format. Is this based on the NCS?


Petros

[Miquel Garcia]

Matthew wrote:
There are NCS templates included in the US localization. Perhaps Graphisoft should post the templates for download.

This would help, of course. Our problem is that here in Spain people are not concerned about standards. We have our own (incomplete) layer system and I am trying to improve it.

Thank you Matthew !