Magic is partially about slight of hand, “Now you see it, now you don’t” with the other part about selling it to the audience, making them believe that the bird just appeared or that they did really just see a rabbit come out of the hat. Paper Space Layouts really aren’t that much different in that we want to take our model space geometry and using AutoCAD’s tool-set (slight of hand), sell it to the audience by presenting it in a way that is easy for them to understand, seeing only what we want them to see. A big component of presenting the Paper Space Layout is Layers. We can control the visibility and properties of the layers per viewport and there are many tools for making it easy to accomplish.

Palming Card Trick Magic

Image courtesy of Steven Depolo via Flickr

Plot Styles

Back in the day (pre-AutoCAD 2000) there was one Plot Style option, which turned into Color Dependent Styles. With Color Dependent Styles (CTB) you use colors to control how the drawing will plot. For example you could make anything green plot black with a thicker lineweight and anything yellow plot purple with a lighter lineweight. Although Color Dependent works in many situations it is limiting as you then need to pay attention to which colors you are assigning to your layers. You would not want to assign green (from the above example) with its thicker linewidth to your centerline layer. With AutoCAD 2000 Autodesk introduced Named Plot Styles (STB) in which you define named styles and assign these to your layers, removing the dependency on colors. To create (or modify) a Plot Style go to the Application Menu (big “A” in the upper left corner) and from the Print sub-menu select Manage Plot Styles. From the Explorer window that appears select Add-a-Plot Style Wizard AutoCAD Add-a-Plot Style IconHere’s a short video showing the process. Notice how many aspects of the object can be set with the Plot Style, including things like Line End Style and Line Join Style which cannot be configured anywhere else.

One catch about AutoCAD and its Plot Styles is that each drawing can only use one type, as in you cannot access both CTB and STB from the same drawing. Color Dependent drawings can be converted to Named Styles using the command CONVERTPSTYLES.. AutoCAD CONVERTPSTYLES Warning You will be prompted to select the Named Style to apply to the drawing.This can be altered at anytime from the Page Setup dialog. Within the Layer Manager you can adjust the styles assigned to each layer http://youtu.be/Rdaov8SGjpw

Freezing Layers

Layers can be toggled OFF or FROZEN to make them invisible and not shown. This removes the layer from view from Model Space AND all Paper Space Viewports. So what can be do for a specific viewport? This is where VP Freeze and New VP Freeze comes into play. AutoCAD VP Freeze Layer Manager While on a Paper Space Layout activate a viewport (easiest is to just double-click inside one) and from the Layer Manager toggle the VP Freeze toggle for the layers you do not want to appear in the Viewport AutoCAD Layers VP Frozen   New VP Freeze toggles the layer to be automatically Viewport Frozen in each New viewport you create. Where can you use this? Say you are detailing a house and just finished detailing all the electrical requirements and you will be moving on to the plumbing and HVAC. Since the electrical layers will no longer be required you can toggle the New VP Freeze option meaning that it will stay visible in the existing viewports but will automatically be invisible for each new viewport The Layer tool Thaw All Layers has no effect on VP Frozen Layers… but Layer Freeze does and it includes a toggle to either freeze the layer of the selected object or VP freeze the layer. When you start the command, before picking anything, right-click and select Settings, then Viewports. You have the option for either Freeze or VPFreeze. Layer Off actually has the same option meaning you can use the Layer Off tool to select objects in the active viewport and have the layers VP frozen opposed to being turned off within the entire drawing. The feature VP Freeze Layers in All Viewports Except Current does exactly as described. Start the command and within the active viewport select the layers you want to remain visible in the active layer but become VP Frozen in all other Viewports AutoCAD VP Freeze Layers in All Viewports Except Current

Layer Properties

Similar to freezing a layer in a viewport (VP Freeze) layer properties can be overridden on a viewport by viewport basis. What the walls to be red in one viewport but cyan in the next? No problem. To override the layer properties you need to first activate the viewport. Once activated you can use the Layer Manager to adjust the properties. AutoCAD highlights all adjustments, making it very easy visually to see the layers that have been adjusted.

AutoCAD Viewport Layer Properties Overriden

To quickly revert the layers the right-click menu provides a shortcut to remove the overrides from selected layers or all layers for the active viewport or for the entire drawing.

AutoCAD Remove Layer Viewport Overrides

Layer States and Viewports

In the article on Layer States we explored how layers are in a constant state of change… layer on, layer off, layer thaw, layer lock, layer color change, layer freeze, layer off, layer on, repeat, and repeat again. Also how its very common to perform the same set of state changes on a group of layers and by using Layer States you can “Save, restore, and manage sets of layer settings

AutoCAD tracks which Space you are in when you create a Layer State and provides an option to capture the settings as Viewport Overrides. This means when you apply the Layer State to a viewport only that viewport is effected by the layer setting adjustments

AutoCAD Paper Space Layer States