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hans		#1 Posted : Saturday, February 5, 2011 8:42:53 PM(UTC)
Rank: Junior Member Joined: 1/4/2011(UTC) Posts: 12		Edit: whow, this got longer than intended. Here's the summary: The following layer features are unclear to me (newbie, 8weeks working with VC Pro 6) - use of layers in a project - renaming layers - moving layers across hierarchy levels - the way layers are used by automatic drawing generator. - Context commands "hide/show all" and "isolate layer" I'd be glad if you could give me feedback on those topics. Please also post if you only have feedback to one of them. Hello, after reading though all forum posts talking about layers I am convinced to use them intensively. Also I am a lot more productive as 4 weeks ago without layers. Meanwhile I see why the software allows up to 1200 layers. When I take my (not too complex) model with about 50 primitives I get a layer hierarchy for the model structure with a sublayer for each group and eventually a sublayer per part. Each of those may have sublayers for helper geometry, profiles and dimensions. When I need drawings for each part, I get per drawing again 4 additional layers. I did not sum it up, but for 1200 layers, a complete project can not have a huge number of parts. Please correct me if I got anything wrong at that point. Working with the layer manager I need to change the tree as my model design evolves. I browse the tree with the keyboard. Only to rename layers I need to take the mouse, click, go back to the keyboard and write. I am sure there must be a way to edit them by keyboard (would have expected F2 key). Any advice? A bit more difficult I find it to structure the tree. Quite often I need to rearrange sub layers. I did not find out how I could move a subayer with a group of other sublayers (say an own small subassembly) up one layer or below another parent layer. Today I create a new layer hierarchy at the target parent, then go to each of the source sub layers, use show isolate, select all, and use the Object Info dialog to assign them to the new target layer or copy and paste them. As this is rather easy to do for leaf layers only, it does not seem to copy the substructures with the non leaf layers. Bit-by-bit copy is an incredible dull and lengthy task with loads of risk to break links and histories. I am sure there must be an other way. Any ideas? An other very good use for changing layers is the automatic drawing. I did not explore it deeply yet, but it seems that it generates a main layer for each part I require a drawing for and with each main layer having 3 more sub layers. The main layers are causing me problems. I would rather like to have all generated drawings in an own sub tree as the example below. -drawings (main level) - housing - Title - Dimension - drawing - Gearbox - Gearbox housing - Title - Dimension - drawing - Gear 1 - Title - Dimension - drawing - Gear2 - Title - Dimension - drawing - ... Is that possible at all? If so, how would I do that? Of do you take another approach managing drawings altogether? Your help is mostly appreciated as I currently facing quite a few drawings. The last issue are the commands - isolate layer - show all /hide all. Do you use these commands at all? For example I once made the mistake to press "show all". The whole tree was shown at once: all drawings on top of each other and on top of 3D parts and helper parts. Total mess. Took me five minutes to redo the setting of all tree branches (i.e. for each single part layer hide helper geometry, profiles and dimensions). Same with isolate and hide all. They are useful by itself, but its rather forbidding because its so much work to get the rest of the tree back to a useful state. Its much quicker for me to manually hide/show the top hierarchies, because this does not delete the settings in the sub levels. Would be helpful to know if I got it wrong and overlooked a setting or correct procedure. Thanks for your patience reading all this and for your support Regards Hans Having VC Pro6 latest service pack on Windows


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jdi000		#2 Posted : Sunday, February 6, 2011 3:20:07 PM(UTC)
Rank: Administration Joined: 7/29/2007(UTC) Posts: 1,862 Thanks: 1 times Was thanked: 87 time(s) in 81 post(s)		Hi Hans Layers Up to 32000 are possible. Regards Jason
		Windows 11, 10


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hans		#3 Posted : Sunday, February 6, 2011 3:33:40 PM(UTC)
Rank: Junior Member Joined: 1/4/2011(UTC) Posts: 12		Originally Posted by: jdi000 Layers Up to 32000 are possible. Regards Jason Thats good, so the number in the manual is an old one. I just looked into V7 release notes and saw that the layer manager seems to get a feature to relocate layers. I just finished the drawing for a sub component today. I can not believe that anyone out there is doing large projects like this. Half my concept explorer dialog is full with drawing layers. Since any new layer is added at the it feels that most of the time is taken up by scrolling the layer tree. Regards hans


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jdi000		#4 Posted : Sunday, February 6, 2011 3:48:33 PM(UTC)
Rank: Administration Joined: 7/29/2007(UTC) Posts: 1,862 Thanks: 1 times Was thanked: 87 time(s) in 81 post(s)		Hi Hans You can create you own draw views instead of using model to sheet, so in that case you can control the layers that each drawing goes on, as well as dimensions, title block etc. But you have to do this manually. You can create manual draw view and crtl drag the side of a draw view to generate the other views from the single draw view thus putting the draw views on the layer you want. Regards Jason
		Windows 11, 10


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hans		#5 Posted : Sunday, February 6, 2011 4:00:57 PM(UTC)
Rank: Junior Member Joined: 1/4/2011(UTC) Posts: 12		Originally Posted by: jdi000 Hi Hans You can create you own draw views instead of using model to sheet, so in that case you can control the layers that each drawing goes on, as well as dimensions, title block etc. But you have to do this manually. You can create manual draw view and crtl drag the side of a draw view to generate the other views from the single draw view thus putting the draw views on the layer you want. Jason Great! And thanks, seems really obvious after your explanation. But sometimes one does not see the most simple approaches. I guess that I would copy the drawing template from an existing drawing with copy/paste. Actually that would save me even some time - I can get all template data as project, date etc already filled out and do not have to do it every time again. There is not by chance any work around to copy e.g. the 4 view frames without content from another drawing? I noted that I can not select multiple view frames. regards hans


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NickB		#6 Posted : Monday, February 7, 2011 3:04:15 PM(UTC)
Rank: Senior Member Joined: 2/19/2007(UTC) Posts: 501 Was thanked: 2 time(s) in 1 post(s)		Sounds like you have a good understanding of layers, and the weaknesses of the current layer management tools. While modeling I have never come up against the upper limit of layers, even on project files that I have used for months and have grown to over 400 MB. Not being able to re-arrange layer structure is a huge problem, and like you write short of moving the contents of each layer individually there is nothing that can be done. Worse, if you do start changing layer structure by moving objects and controlling construction geometry from layer to layer you stand the risk of breaking a parts history, particularly if you delete the starting layer. An example: two solids created on two different layers, boolean together and delete one of the originating layers. With a simple block it does not blow up, but if there is complex geometry and constructions involved it often does. In practice I have a pretty good idea of what type of layer structure I am going to need for a project, and try to flesh out the outlines of that structure before I start modeling. Usually this works well, but sometimes when I think I am going to be making many iterative models I find myself with a structure that is deeper than I need. What do I do in these circumstances? Live with it, as moving everything is too difficult and tiresome. Daily I version my main model file, so that if I do need to restructure things I always have a fall back, and at various stages in a project I will often restructure things to get rid of all the old stuff that I no longer need, however be careful with this, as you can delete underlying geometry by mistake. Show all layers, hide all layers, expand all layers etc. I never use these commands / tools, as I find them way to crude. Instead I do things manually, and use the show / hide, isolate, object tools, for which I have keyboard shortcuts set up for the tools that I use most: show - S, hide - h, show only - o. By using the object tools rather than the layer tools to show and hide I don't accidentally blow away the settings on layers that I can't see, or want to to turn on and off as a group. Renaming layers. It would be great if there was a shortcut that could be assigned to this, but sadly the functionality is completely missing, however as I spend so much time mousing I don't see this as a huge deal. Model to sheet. You can edit the drawing views in ViaCad / Templates / ModelToSheet, to include your name etc., then re-save using the existing names. Sheet views then come up pre-populated with your data.
		Shark FX 9 build 1143 OS X 9.5 3.6 GHz Core i7, 8GB, GTX 760 2GB matter.cc
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ZeroLengthCurve		#7 Posted : Monday, February 7, 2011 5:01:34 PM(UTC)
Rank: Senior Member Joined: 5/15/2008(UTC) Posts: 991 Thanks: 20 times Was thanked: 42 time(s) in 26 post(s)		Originally Posted by: hans Thats good, so the number in the manual is an old one. I just looked into V7 release notes and saw that the layer manager seems to get a feature to relocate layers. I just finished the drawing for a sub component today. I can not believe that anyone out there is doing large projects like this. Half my concept explorer dialog is full with drawing layers. Since any new layer is added at the it feels that most of the time is taken up by scrolling the layer tree. Regards hans Thanks for bringing up VCP 7, Hans.... I have the beta which will expire in a couple or so weeks. I'd completely forgotten to check for ability to drag sublayers to a new layer outside the branch. I too generate lots of nested layers/sublayers, and even though i also coneptualize where i want things to go, i sometimes evolve a model's layers so much that i chafe and stress out in VCP 6. VCP 6 does allow exporting of blank layers, and if you have objects on some, you can -- if you want -- export just those layers, and then import them into a new base drawing. Still, that doesn't solve VCP6's layers restructuring limitations. I've notice abotu a 10 MB RAM use reduction in VCP 7 versus VCP 6.


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hans		#8 Posted : Monday, February 7, 2011 6:30:11 PM(UTC)
Rank: Junior Member Joined: 1/4/2011(UTC) Posts: 12		Originally Posted by: NickB Sounds like you have a good understanding of layers, and the weaknesses of the current layer management tools. well, I'd rather have found to know a tiny percentage of it. Is a bit startling since it turned into a very central tool I am using constantly. Also I thought CAD world's main concern always is work flow. However being a software guy originally I could imagine that the layer tree structure might not been designed to cope with an extension like that. Originally Posted by: NickB While modeling I have never come up against the upper limit of layers, even on project files that I have used for months and have grown to over 400 MB. Indeed, 32000 layers seems more that enough. Given the limitation you describe I begin to consider splitting up my models into serveral files containing all submodules. Would require importing submodules into a full assembly file, but maybe its easier to handle for larger projects. Originally Posted by: NickB Not being able to re-arrange layer structure is a huge problem, and like you write short of moving the contents of each layer individually there is nothing that can be done. Worse, if you do start changing layer structure by moving objects and controlling construction geometry from layer to layer you stand the risk of breaking a parts history, particularly if you delete the starting layer. An example: two solids created on two different layers, boolean together and delete one of the originating layers. With a simple block it does not blow up, but if there is complex geometry and constructions involved it often does. Maybe I had a similar issue once as I assigned structure to a different layer but the source layer was left with objects (I saw the count in the concept explorer), but no object were visible. I had no idea what that was or how I could find out more about it, so I ended up with reloading my backup copy (thats what I tend to do now very often when I am dealing with an area I do not feel fully confident in) Originally Posted by: NickB In practice I have a pretty good idea of what type of layer structure I am going to need for a project, and try to flesh out the outlines of that structure before I start modeling. Usually this works well, but sometimes when I think I am going to be making many iterative models I find myself with a structure that is deeper than I need. Unfortunately I more often that not end up with something completely different than initially expected. That's part of the reason to use CAD in the first place, because its so much cheaper and quicker to find the mistakes in my design ideas before actually building the stuff. Originally Posted by: NickB By using the object tools rather than the layer tools to show and hide I don't accidentally blow away the settings on layers that I can't see, or want to to turn on and off as a group. Thanks, good to know. I had been using them quite intensively as well. Originally Posted by: NickB I did that, but I would not enter the project details. Copying them from within the same file would allow me to select the closest one for the other drawing, so there would be just the part name field being different. Regards hans


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hans		#9 Posted : Monday, February 7, 2011 6:37:11 PM(UTC)
Rank: Junior Member Joined: 1/4/2011(UTC) Posts: 12		Originally Posted by: ZeroLengthCurve Thanks for bringing up VCP 7, Hans.... I have the beta which will expire in a couple or so weeks. I'd completely forgotten to check for ability to drag sublayers to a new layer outside the branch. I finished downloading it this morning, but it might take me a few days to get some time to install an check it. I would be interested how you like the feature. Originally Posted by: ZeroLengthCurve I too generate lots of nested layers/sublayers, and even though i also coneptualize where i want things to go, i sometimes evolve a model's layers so much that i chafe and stress out in VCP 6. VCP 6 does allow exporting of blank layers, and if you have objects on some, you can -- if you want -- export just those layers, and then import them into a new base drawing. Still, that doesn't solve VCP6's layers restructuring limitations. Did I get that right: If I export a part in a sublayer which itself has additional sublayers (including empty ones). The exported file still contains those layers. Upon import of that file, the layers survive? If thats the case this almost would be a workaround. Only thing needed then would be a way to tell the imported where to put the new layer. Little use if it only can be a main layer at the end of the tree... Originally Posted by: ZeroLengthCurve I've notice abotu a 10 MB RAM use reduction in VCP 7 versus VCP 6. Thats great. I see my disk quota going down alarmingly as I am doing loads of backup copies. I appreciate a lot you good feedback! regards Hans


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NickB		#10 Posted : Monday, February 7, 2011 6:56:54 PM(UTC)
Rank: Senior Member Joined: 2/19/2007(UTC) Posts: 501 Was thanked: 2 time(s) in 1 post(s)		Originally Posted by: hans Is a bit startling since it turned into a very central tool I am using constantly. Also I thought CAD world's main concern always is work flow. Sadly workflow is an area that has received very little attention in Shark / ViaCad. Many suggestions have been made over the years, but generally have fallen on deaf ears. Unbelievably it took 10 years for Shark to get drag and drop layer re-ordering, and even that (as you know) is very limited.
		Shark FX 9 build 1143 OS X 9.5 3.6 GHz Core i7, 8GB, GTX 760 2GB matter.cc
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