autocad tracing..anyone?

[rock1]

How can I do tracing in autocad?

 

Suppose, I have two floor plans, ground floor and first floor in a single .dwg file. there are many layers with different colours. ground floor plan and first floor plan are sharing layers too. That is ground floor also has objects in the walls layer so does the first floor plan

 

I want to to like this. I want to make the ground floor grayed out light and on the top of it I want to overlap my first floor plan. The thing is that all the layers of the objects should stay as it is. only the colour of the ground floor plan should get gray. the rest of the layers and the colours

 

There's an option like this in ArchicAD. Is there a workaround in autocad too?

[ReMark]

Can't you just lock the ground floor layer?

[rock1]

Can't you just lock the ground floor layer?

 

 

well actually there's no ground floor layer. i have layers like doors, windows, walls ,elevators, construction lines, etc. they are all shared by 4 floors actually that my drawing has.

[f700es]

Layer management is the key to this, Make all the 1st floor layers say something like "walls-1st" or similar. This way you can lock those layers and get the greyed out look you want.

[Stryker1989]

Yeah I did the same thing but for a chemical rig that was split across three floors and I did what f700es suggested and it worked a treat, I woulda been screwed if I hadn't so it taught me to always have good layer management.

[emwhite]

Layer management will work too. I copy my first floor plan to the "clipboard" and then I paste it back in to the drawing as a block. I put that block on a separate layer and then lock it. I will trace over the block from there.

 

The down side to the block method is any changes made to the first floor will not be reflected automatically (It would be nice if AutoCAD would allow self Xref).

 

The down side to stacking floors and using layer management is that when you send it off to someone to use/see, they would have to understand/decipher your methods.

[tzframpton]

1st floor and 2nd floor need to be separate DWG files, then use External Referencing to bring them together when needed.

[nestly]

I'm curious what benefit xrefs have over viewports or layerstates which can both totally filter out everything that's not on the current level?

[DANIEL]

I'm curious what benefit xrefs have over viewports or layerstates which can both totally filter out everything that's not on the current level?

 

it will allow you to manage things across multiple drawings. It should also be fairly easier to manage in general as well.

[tzframpton]

I'm curious what benefit xrefs have over viewports or layerstates which can both totally filter out everything that's not on the current level?

It's not that it can't be done the way the original poster is wanting, but it's REALLY bad practices. Containing multiple levels in a single DWG can become catastrophic depending on what your end goal is at a later time. Plus the management of those layers would be quite grueling. Imagine all the Layer Property Filters you would need just to manage that.

 

I mean if it's a simple floorplan and doesn't need much managing then yeah, some good layer control would definitely work. I'm just looking further down the road for the O.P.'s own interest.

[DANIEL]

it will also help cut down your file size

[Jack_O'neill]

To answer the OP's question, if you have a layer called simply "doors", and your project has multiple floors and you drew all the doors for all floors on that layer, then about all you can do is go around and turn the things you want to "gray-out" into a block, put it on it's own layer and lock it. You can always explode it again later. I would suggest as have some of the others that you create individual layers for each floor. "Doors2ndFloor" or some such. It can be the same color and linetype as "doors1stfloor" but that will let you lock, freeze and turn off the stuff you don't want to see. Multiple floor entities such as elevators can be handled the same way by giving it it's own layer. If you make the elevator a block and put it on it's own layer you can not only change it's visibility, but by using the block editor, you can change every instance of that blockin that drawing at one time. Naming it "doorsxxx" instead of "xxxdoors" will group all similar items together alphabetically in the list. Yes, if you have 10 floors, you'll have 10 layers that start with "doors", but that is easier than looking through 100 layers that start with "1st".

 

Everyone has thier own ideas about how layers and blocks should be used, and they all work. What you have to do is figure out a way that makes sense to you, and that can be easily explained to others (or that can be easily deciphered by someone in case you're not there to ask). Xref's have thier uses, but my personal preference is to avoid them. Invariably some where down the line, someone won't understand it and will change the externally referenced drawing without thinking of the consequences. Blocks are unique to the drawing they are in even if you copy and paste them from another drawing. Changes to drawing "a" will not affect drawing "b". If you xref drawing "a" in 100 other drawings, and someone changes drawing "a", it changes in all 100 of the other drawings as soon as they are opened, or will if the person opening it says yes to reloading the xref. There are all sorts of hoops to jump through to send a drawing to someone via email or other methods if they are not on your network because of the pathing issues. Yes, if you understand how it works and do it correctly, it's not that big a deal, but 99 out of every 100 people that send me xreffed drawings don't know how to do it. And it gets even worse if you have nested xrefs.

 

All that is strictly my personal preference based on years of pain and suffering inflicted by xrefs. You may love them and if you do, go for it. Its a great tool if everyone involved understands it.

[Cad64]

1st floor and 2nd floor need to be separate DWG files, then use External Referencing to bring them together when needed.

 

I'll agree with that.

[Jack_O'neill]

it will also help cut down your file size

 

Or have them in separate areas of model space brought together with viewports on a layout tab

[nestly]

Yeah, I think we're probably not all imagining the same scenario. There's no way on earth I'd recommend xrefs for a 2D drawing of a 2story residential structure authored by a single draftsman.

[Jack_O'neill]

Yeah, I think we're probably not all imagining the same scenario. There's no way on earth I'd recommend xrefs for a 2D drawing of a 2story residential structure authored by a single draftsman.

 

I would draw the footprint of the building, plus anything that the 2 floors share (like elevator, chimney, etc). Then copy that off to the side or above, add all the stuff for the first floor on one of them, put the stuff on the second floor on the other one. Create three layout tabs, one for each floor and one combined. Throw on the dimensions and stuff and have done.

[tzframpton]

Yeah, I think we're probably not all imagining the same scenario. There's no way on earth I'd recommend xrefs for a 2D drawing of a 2story residential structure authored by a single draftsman.

Why would you not recommend this?

[DANIEL]

I'm confused to as xreferences were meant to help manage things just like this ...

[Jack_O'neill]

Why would you not recommend this?

 

Why have 2 or three 100k files when one 200k file will do it? Granted, there comes a point when it would make sense to split it up, but a single family 2 story house? come on....

[nestly]

Why have 2 or three 100k files when one 200k file will do it? Granted' date=' there comes a point when it would make sense to split it up, but a single family 2 story house? come on....[/quote']

 

That's exactly how I feel about it, Jack. Xrefs are really just more layers. It doesn't matter if they're stored locally or externally. The contents of those layers are still part of the whole project, and you still have to manage those layers basically the same way. Switching layer states and/or switching viewports is just as efficient, if not more so, than working with two separate drawings. Having said that, all of my projects contain xrefs, but they're 3rd party civil drawings that are subject to change at any time by others, major subsystems such as detached buildings, and complex equipment that may or may not be specific to that project.

 

The 2nd story on a 2D house drawing may be 12-18 layers for someone that's extremely layer happy, that just doesn't warrant a 2nd drawing IMO.