- [Instructor] Once again,
we're staying in our ground floor plan rev5.dwg file.
And I just want to take you into layers
and the layer dropdown menu a bit more
because we haven't really touched on those
in any depth in this particular AutoCAD
essential training course yet.
Now, when you draw things in your AutoCAD drawings,
you're obviously things on differing layers
so that you can obviously distinguish
one object from another.
So for example, you can see there
that it's very easy to distinguish the dimensions
and the grid lines
and also the stairs and the doors and so on.
So what we're going to do is go to the home tab on the ribbon,
and we're going to jump
into the layer property palette first of all.
Now there's a lot of information in here.
You can see that there's lots of different tools
and things available too.
Now, the important things are the layers
in the layer properties manager,
so there's our layers there,
got a big long list of layers in this drawing.
Now, typical layers that I've created
as we've worked this particular course
are things like the bike bays
and the bike bay setting out points.
Now you'll notice the setting out points are frozen
and there's a little sort of snowflake there
letting me know that they are frozen.
The setting out points for the regular drawing
are also frozen but other layers aren't.
Now I can turn layers on and off using the light bulb,
I can freeze and thaw layers using the sun
and the snowflake symbols.
If I leave a layer on or off,
what that means is that particular layer
will always be considered when I regenerate the drawing.
If I freeze a layer and it's hidden in the drawing area,
that means that that layer will not be considered
when the drawing is regenerated just so you're aware.
Now, obviously creating a new layer is very easy.
We click up here like so, and I'm going to create a new layer
and that new layer is going to be called landscaping.
Like so, press Enter to confirm there's the layer.
And you'll notice it's adopted the layer
above it that I had so elected,
so I need to make sure that it's obviously thought out
and the sun symbol is displayed.
I'm also going to change the color,
I want it to be a green color
'cause it's landscaping like so,
so I'm going to use color 90 there like so.
And I'm also going to make sure
it's using a continuous line type,
so I select continuous from the list
and it's using the default line white,
so I slide up to the top of the list and select default.
I can then make that the current drafting layer
by selecting it in the list in the layer properties manager
and clicking on this icon here,
or I can set it current
or a little quick sort of double click there
on that sheet of paper next to the landscaping layer
will also make it the current drafting layer.
So if I now close the layer properties manager,
you'll see that landscaping
has become the current drafting layer.
Now you'll notice I don't have to keep going
into the layer properties all the time.
I can use the layer dropdown right here
and I can select any layer name
to make it the current drafting layer.
So for example, if I wanted to draw some new bike bays,
I click on bike bays there
and now bike bays is my current drafting layer.
So if I started drawing lines or arcs now,
they would appear on the bike bays layer.
So that's using your layer and your layer dropdown,
so to speak.
So, layers here, we always just call it layer
because what you do is you type layer,
can you see there?
So you use your layer to get into the layer properties,
you just type layer.
And then, like I said,
you've also got your layer dropdown right here as well
where you can work with the layers.
And all you got to do, like I said, is select the layer
that you want to be the current drafting layer.
Now, I just wanted to get that across to you
very quickly in this particular course
because a lot of training courses that I've seen
don't tell you about the layers and how to work with them.
So it's really important
that you work with your layers in AutoCAD drawing.
And make sure that you put objects
on the layer that they should be on the first time around.
So for example, the current drafting layer is bike bays,
if I want to add some more bike bays to the drawing,
I'll make sure that I'm on that layer
rather than for example,
start drafting on a different layer
that's totally not representative of what I'm drafting.
So for example, if I selected landscaping
and started drawing bike bays, it's on the wrong layer,
then I've got to go and put those objects
onto the correct layer.
So try and get it right first time,
try and make sure that the layer that you are using
is the layer that you want the objects to be on
in the first instance.