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PSA: Stop putting your dimension lines on the same layer as your walls | Drafters - Talk Freely

PSA: Stop putting your dimension lines on the same layer as your walls

I keep seeing new drafters throw all their linework on layer 0 or the wall layer because it's faster. But when you have to go back and suppress dimensions for a plot set, or someone asks for a measure-only PDF, it turns into a nightmare. After redoing a whole 3-story townhouse set for a client in Austin last month because I couldn't batch freeze the dims, I learned the hard way. Anyone else have a story about getting burned by lazy layer management?

3 comments

3 Comments

drew6904mo ago

Layer management is one of those things that feels like a waste of time until you're an hour into fixing someone else's mess. The trick I use now is to just set up a template file with like five layers already made. That way it takes zero extra time to start a new project because the structure is already there. Also, using the purge command after every few hours of work catches a lot of junk before it stacks up. A buddy of mine once spent a whole weekend separating dims from walls on a condo job because the original guy just dumped everything on layer 0. That's the kind of lesson you only learn once.

ray1894mo ago

Man, that condo story hits hard. @drew690, I had a nearly identical situation a few years back. Some guy left a whole hospital wing drawing with all his linework on one layer, it was a nightmare. Took me three days just to get it sorted out. Now I keep a template with five clean layers too, plus a separate one for xrefs. Saves my sanity every single time.

uma6854mo ago

Oh man, that condo story might as well be about me. I had a project last year where the guy before me had everything on layer 0 plus he named all his blocks "Block1" and "Block2". I spent a whole Saturday just renaming and moving stuff around. The template idea is gold, I do the same thing now with six layers preset and I color code them too. And yeah, purging every couple hours is a lifesaver, I started doing that after I had a file with like 200 unused layers that made it take forever to load. It's funny how something so simple feels like such a hassle until you've been burned.