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Defining layer combinations and pen sets for layouts

Ro-Ra
Booster

I am an avid user of AC for more than a decade now and like the versatility and ease of use of this program. But my absolute worst pet peeve is during publishing I inadvertently have a pen set and layer combo set and things turn out not as planned during a stressful hand-in. Believe it or not, it happens quite often that folks have drawings and other 2d goodies in a layer in layouts that inadvertently get hidden during publish if one forgets to manually set pens/layer combos before each and every publish. This is my absolute biggest frustration with AC in general. My guess is that I'm not alone with this pet peeve.

 

This would be imho the single most welcome new feature for AC for the devs to implement if it were possible to have a pen set and layer combo for every layout.

6 REPLIES 6
Barry Kelly
Moderator

Are you creating 'Views' in the 'View Map' from the 'View Points' in the 'Project Map' ?

If not, this is what you should be doing.

These 'Views" will retain settings for pen set, layer combination, scale, graphic override, etc.

You then place these views on your layouts and there is no need to worry about their settings as they are pre-defined.

 

Barry.

One of the forum moderators.
Versions 6.5 to 27
Dell XPS- i7-6700 @ 3.4Ghz, 16GB ram, GeForce GTX 960 (2GB), Windows 10
Lenovo Thinkpad - i7-1270P 2.20 GHz, 32GB RAM, Nvidia T550, Windows 11
Ro-Ra
Booster

Hi Barry,

 

If you are on a layout you can change your pens/layer combos with the quick settings. This affects 2d elements on the layouts themselves and not the views that are placed on the layouts. Those are managed inside the drawing properties. At least at my workplace we tend to place frames and 2d text not part of the model itself in the layouts which can sometimes end up inadvertently hidden during publish. From my experience folks tend to copy and paste 2d stuff into layouts from model/worksheet space without changing their layers to "Archicad". So stuff can inadvertently get hidden during publishing.

 

Best if either:

1. completely disable layers & have a set pen set for layouts

or

2. have layouts both layer combos & pen sets in the layout settings.

DGSketcher
Legend

I have been irritated by this for years. It is an aspect of publishing that is unstable and there is no obvious lockdown point to define pens or layer settings for Layouts. Quick view settings seem to control the individual layout settings but for some reason opening a view and then going back to a layout causes random transference of the view settings to the layouts. This is why running "Update ALL" before publishing can generate unexpected results including blank pages. It's definitely something that GS should have fixed a long time ago.

Apple iMac Intel i9 / macOS Sonoma / AC27UKI (most recent builds.. if they work)
furtonb
Advisor

For this reason I try to put all the contents of a Layout on the Archicad layer, and the title blocks are contained in a placed View on the Master Layout (also on that layer, so I can't accidentally turn it off)... Which is often annoying, as it would be much better to use layer combinations properly for the Publishing process too, for drafting lines or temporary information, markups, whatever.

 

+1 for this request!

odv.hu | actively using: AC25-27 INT | Rhino6-8 | macOS @ apple silicon / win10 x64
Barry Kelly
Moderator

Just for clarification.

Layouts do not have layer combinations.

The entire layout book uses the same layer combination.

So if you set  the layers for one layout, all the others will use the same layers.

This will only affect items you add to to the layouts themselves - all 2D annotation and the actual drawings (views) that you place.

It will not affect the content of the drawing (views) but may turn them on/off completely.

 

I place all of my drawings (views) in the Archcad layer so they can never be turned off.

I don't add any annotation in the layouts, I do all of that in the views that I place as drawings.

But if you do  add annotation, you probably will want that in the Archicad layer as well.

 

Don't expect to use layer combinations for different  layouts, because it just doesn't work.

 

Barry.

One of the forum moderators.
Versions 6.5 to 27
Dell XPS- i7-6700 @ 3.4Ghz, 16GB ram, GeForce GTX 960 (2GB), Windows 10
Lenovo Thinkpad - i7-1270P 2.20 GHz, 32GB RAM, Nvidia T550, Windows 11
DGSketcher
Legend

@Barry Kelly Everything you say is correct by the book, but that isn't what I am experiencing. Unfortunately I haven't been able to pin down the bug that overrides individual layout layer settings. I could change to other layouts that are displayed correctly and still come back to the same layout with the adopted layer combo setting. This was quite frequent when using split Interactive Schedules with views on the affected layouts but due to other workflow problems with the schedules I am using them a lot less now.

 

I can see how using the Archicad layer should avoid such display issues, but enabling layer control for Layouts should not only stabilise such issues, but also enable more flexible deployment of Master Layouts. For example an "A2" size Master could have its name listed in the Transmittal sheet as "A2" but could have various title and standard text options available just by changing the layer combo.

Apple iMac Intel i9 / macOS Sonoma / AC27UKI (most recent builds.. if they work)