From the course: AutoCAD: Advanced 3D Modeling

Create layer and property filters for 3D modeling - AutoCAD Tutorial

From the course: AutoCAD: Advanced 3D Modeling

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Create layer and property filters for 3D modeling

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- [Instructor] Now we're going to create a layer standard that we're going to use to differentiate between 2D and 3D information. Let's open up the Layer Properties Manager, either by typing LA + Enter or by clicking this icon right here. And we have a number of different layers that have been set up in this project that differentiate all the different parts that we have. So for example, let's say I want to create a three dimensional frame. We have a 2D frame layer already, so if I first click on that layer and then click New Layer up here, the new layer will appear below the selected layer and it will inherit the properties of the selected layer. So, this is also a red layer. I'm going to type dash + frame and that's the convention that I'm going to use in this project. So, anything with a dash preceding the name refers to a 3D layer. Anything without the dash is a 2D layer. Now, I'll click on the name header up here twice to sort the list in reverse order and then in forward order. And, you can see that anything with a dash proceeding the name is alphabetized above layer zero. So, this is one way that we can separate the 3D from the 2D layers. And, to even make this more clear, because I'm anticipating creating 3D layers for each one of the layers as I go through the project. I think I'll also create, over here I'll create a new Property Filter by clicking this button. So the way that this works is you give that filter a name. I'll call it 3D Layers and over here you can make a filter in any one of the different properties. In my case, I'm concerned about the name, so I'll click right here on the Name Field and I'll type a dash. So dash + star means any layer that has a dash preceding the name. And you can see down here that that's applying just to this one layer right now. I'll say okay and now, when I'm using this Property Filter it's showing me just the 3D layers. It might also be helpful to have another property filter for the 2D layers. So to do so, I'll go back to All and click New Property Filter and call this 2D Layers. Then I'll click on the Name Field here and I'll type Tilde + dash + asterisks. This means anything but layers that start with a dash and then the asterisks refers to any characters, wild card characters. So, this refers to anything that's a 2D layer. We'll say okay and so now, we see the 2D layers and the 3D layers that can be easily differentiated in this way. So, now we have a nice system set up. I can go up here to All Used Layers and that shows me everything that I have. We can anticipate as we go through the project we'll be creating new layers with a dash preceding the name to refer to anything that's three dimensional. Oh, finally, double-click on this to set the new 3D layer Current and I'd like this palette to remain on the screen and I'll click this button right here to auto-hide it so that when I bring the cursor over it it will display it. When I take it off of there it will hide. Also, I want to move that over to the left side of the screen and if I bring that over here it will want to dock. I don't want to dock, so I'm going to hold down the control key to override that behavior and just place it right there. So, now it's neatly located and I can access layers at anytime just by doing that. You can also resize this palette, if you don't want to see all this information. We can make it a little bit narrower.

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