So now we're going to look at some layers and layers is something it's it's a fundamental in AutoCAD,
really.
And some people, well, you should use them.
It makes your life easier.
It would also, if you were in the workplace, they would expect you to use them.
And some people don't, especially self-taught people can maybe not use them because they're not used
to them.
AutoCAD, like a lot of CAD software, it's one of those things you could you could start using it,
you could find your way through it.
You could learn to draw rectangles and things.
And it's it's quite self-explanatory.
And maybe someone who's self-taught could end up being able to draw the object they wanted to draw.
And I think, well, I know how to use AutoCAD.
But there's all sorts of things in there, such as come CAD standards and just professional ways of
using the software.
But if you're not sure and you wouldn't even know you were supposed to do and that's one of the one
of the ways in the workplace you can tell someone who's.
Kind of just picked up the software and learned to use it against someone who's been properly trained.
Is the way that you do certain things and layers is definitely one of those things.
So it's important to know about layers and also how they can make your life so much easier, especially
when you start getting a more complex drawing.
So we'll look at the basic principles in this chapter and in other chapters in the actual courses you'll
put them into practice.
But we'll go over now looking at just the principles behind the layer system.
And to do that we're going to use an example drawing in the resources which is building zero one.
Okay?
And if you open that.
Now, if you open it up and it looks like this, okay, you're in the layout tab.
If you don't understand what that is, don't worry.
You just haven't got that far in your course yet.
But you want to click.
If it does look like this with a white background, you want to click down here where it says model.
Okay.
And you'll be covering all that later in whatever course you're doing, if you haven't already.
But for now, just click on model so you'll get a black black background and it will look similar to
my screen.
And let's look at what layers are all about.
So.
Let's imagine we've we've got this building layout here and we've got our external walls.
We've got our windows.
So this is a building layout.
It's fairly simple, but a large building will just be the same on a larger scale.
So it's a good example.
And we're looking down on the building plan if you're not used to looking at building plans.
We're looking down on kind of a cut through of a building.
Okay.
So these gray, thick walls here, these are the external walls of the building and the green objects
are the windows.
So it's kind of cut, cut through if you imagine cutting a line halfway up the wall of a building and
it goes through the windows and the doors.
This is what we're looking at here.
These thinner lines are the internal walls.
So they would be like a partition wall.
The blue objects are doors.
So these are showing a door and it's showing how it swings.
If you just showed a door here as a line in the wall, it wouldn't tell you how that door opens.
So you need to know which way it would actually swing, which would tell the person building the layout
how to hang the door.
It's hanging here and it's swinging this way.
Okay.
So it's important to know that again, here you've got a double door.
And that's kind of a standard standard.
You might have more detail of a frame on some blocks, but for a simple layout like this, that's a
standard block or standard way of creating a door.
So these orange objects, these are strip lights on the ceiling.
So this would probably be a lighting layout, for instance, for the electrical contractor.
And that's basically that's again, a simple layout, but it's going to it's all created properly using
the correct layers.
So what are layers?
Well, a layer is a way of separating objects into.
Similar groups, if you like.
So the layers can be found.
We have a layer tab here which will give you commands to work with layers, but if you want to actually
see the layers they found under the properties box.
Yeah.
And if we click on Layer properties, which is this button, it will come up with this.
Properties manager here, which allows you to manage all the layers in a drawing.
And now we'll look at this and it will give you an idea of what layers actually do.
So if we look at our list here and I'm just going to move it so you can see the drawing as well, just
move it there.
We have layer zero.
Layer zero is standard when you create a drawing.
If I was to go and create a new drawing just by clicking that tab.
We get a new drawing and our layer manager now in this drawing, it says layer zero.
Okay, So when you start a new drawing, it has one layer, which is layer zero.
And if you want to create any more, you need to add them.
And we'll look at that in a minute.
But back to this one.
We have other layers here.
Apart from layer zero, we've got def points.
Def points is kind of an automatically generated layer.
Just ignore that for now, don't worry about it.
But these layers are layers that have been created in this drawing and we've got layers for each item
or each type of item.
So we've got doors which is obviously the doors.
We've got the external walls, which is these thick walls.
We've got internal walls, we've got lighting.
Okay, Title block.
Don't worry about that.
Windows.
Windows is these green objects.
Okay.
And then we've got one called Hatch.
Hatch is basically the hatch inside the walls.
Sometimes you might want to show that.
Sometimes you might not.
So why do we separate them out?
Well.
Perhaps is a good example.
Let's say for this drawing, the electrical contractor says, actually, I don't want to show the hatched
in this building.
Okay.
Maybe the architect does.
The electrical contractor doesn't for whatever reason.
Because this is on hatch layer.
All what we can do.
We can select this light bulb here.
Okay?
This light bulb is a visibility icon.
It's kind of standard around Autodesk range of software.
If a light bulb is on, it's visible.
If a light bulb is off, which you can do by clicking it, it's not visible and you'll see our hatch
is all disappeared now, but it's not deleted.
All we've done is turn all the hatches off.
Okay?
By clicking that.
And maybe this drawing goes somewhere else, not the electrical contractor.
And I don't want the light showing.
We can go to lighting and we can switch that off.
Okay.
And we could switch doors off.
We could switch the internal walls off.
We could take the windows out.
Okay, so now we've just got our walls with the openings for windows, but not the actual windows.
That's our external wall.
And if we wanted to bring any back in, we can just turn them on and off again.
So.
That is really the principle of layers.
It enables you to turn items off and make them not visible and.
Do other change properties which will only affect that group.
So let's say the internal walls.
So we turn the hatch off.
Okay, The internal walls.
I want all those to be dashed lines so you can select the line and you could go dashed.
Okay.
I change the scale.
So that's the dash line.
And you could select all the lines for the internal walls and you could do the same.
But what you'll notice is that most objects by default when they're created, the line type style is
by layer.
Okay.
And that goes for if I click it the color.
Well, that can be set to by layer.
Okay.
The line thickness can be set to by layer.
So what does by layer mean?
Well, it means those properties, whether it be color, line type, whatever, have been set in the
layer manager.