Topic: "BYLAYER"

[jonesy]

Company policy is to draw objects as colour, linestyle and lineweight bylayer. This is currently not being done by some engineers. I'm finding objects as I take the drawings to final check before the drawings go for issue, or have to make changes to the drawings... and its beginning to drive me potty :ugly:
I guess my question is really 2

1. Is there any way to highlight objects that are not drawn "bylayer" so they are easier for me to find.
2. To stop the engineers questioning company standards, I need to explain why we have to draw bylayer... any advice please.

Thanks in advance
Tracey

[BREZI]

Not easy. Stop letting engineers do drawings.

Suppose a quick check is just to use the quick select command and see if entities are bylayer.

It's hard, I had the same problem, although it's got better, as we implemented cad manual 5 years ago, and engineers are only allowed to do minor cad. That has stopped the bylayer problem.

Also we have lot's af layers for just about every services, high level, low level, underground etc.. so it is easy for engineers to use the system.

[jonesy]

I have no choice but to let the graduate engineers do some cad work. They tell me they are designing as they go along.... but some of the drawings are a total mess. One of my jobs is supposed to be to audit drawings, but I have to find time to do this, and every drawing I have audited so far, has had problems with some objects not being bylayer.

I have used the properties to see if the selected items are bylayer, but unless I am doing something wrong, they dont highlight the problems.

As part of the company standards we use AIA, but we have to define new layers within that system to suit our needs. In theory we have plenty of layers, but people just wont ask what layers to use if they arent sure, they just put it wherever they want, and change one of the properties to suit.

[Kerry]

Tracey, are they at least drawn the correct color ?

I had an idea about this problem a while back, and it may be fun to fashion a solution.

Can you email one of your drawings to me ?

I'll have a look at it tomorrow if you like.

[jonesy]

Thanks Kerry...

They seem to be the correct colours.

I'll see if I can find a small one that has this problem.

I'll take you up on that very generous offer

[CADaver]

1. Is there any way to highlight objects that are not drawn "bylayer" so they are easier for me to find.

I'm sure some of the lispy gurus here will have a very elegant solution to this shortly, but in the mean time, XREF it into an empty file and change the layer colors to something dark like 250.  The offending elements should stick out like a sore thumb.

2. To stop the engineers questioning company standards, I need to explain why we have to draw bylayer... any advice please.

After you've done the XREF thingie above, call the idio... ummm.... uhhh... engineer over and tell him to go fix his drawing 'cuz you can't use it as an xref like this, (whether you need to or not) and let him know that if he drew to company standards, his wasting of several hours could have been avoided.

Compliance to standards is made easier when its invisible to the users.  We use hundreds of macros and functions to control our layering, all of it under the user's radar.  The designer just needs to focus on his design and let the system control everything else.

[jonesy]

Randy, I'd love for the companys standards to be automatically incorporated into everything they draw, but I get no time to develop routines that will end up saving money (unfortunately all my time has to be billable). Some of the things I have introduced have been created by me in my personal time, with lashings of help form the gurus here, but I cant keep begging for free routines, and they cant expect me to keep providing stuff that'll help them if they dont give me the time to do it.

[CAB]

Not elegant but may work for you.
Limited testing.

Code: [Select]

;; Highlite non standard objects in current space
;;   objects with color or linestyle or lineweight NOT bylayer.
(defun c:findnonstandard (/ ss i ename)
  (if
    (setq ss (ssget (list
                      '(-4 . "<OR")
                      '(-4 . "<not") ; NOT the following
                      '(62 . 256)    ; color
                      '(-4 . "not>") ; end of NOT
                      '(6 . "~Bylayer") ; linetype, not ByLayer
                      '(-4 . ">")  ; if > 0 then
                      '(370 . 0)   ; line weight not bylayer
                      '(-4 . "OR>")
                      (cons 410 (getvar "ctab")) ; current space only
                    )
             )
    )
     (progn
       (setq i -1)
       (while (setq ename (ssname ss (setq i (1+ i))))
         (redraw ename 3) ; highlite the object
       )
     )
  )
  (princ)
)

[jonesy]

Wow, thanks CAB that goes a long way into helping me find the errors

[M-dub]

Advice on how to get it through their skulls that using bylayer is important...
Tell them to go into one of their worst creations and change the colour of the text layer to yellow.  Then show them how much easier it could have been if they had simply drawn everything BYLAYER.  Yes, they can use QSELECT, etc. to select all of the text, etc. but the standard is there for a reason... not just 'because'.
My only other advice would be to send each and every single drawing back to the offender and tell them to put everything back to bylayer, then resubmit it to you.  If they only do CAD occasionally and their skill level with AutoCAD is quite low and will likely never increase that much, chances are that they will never truly understand the benefit, so when they ask "Why is it so important to you?!" in their whiney voice, just tell them "Because it is..."

[Kerry]

2. To stop the engineers questioning company standards, I need to explain why we have to draw bylayer... any advice please.

After you've done the XREF thingie above, ......

I could have sworn that Tracey said this, not Mick ... 

[jonesy]

I must've said it in a deep voice

[Kerry]

 

I know Mick, so I'm not allowed to comment on that ...   

[dan19936]

I just quickly change all layers to color 250 (basically black) and most non BYLAYER colors pop right out.  I'm old school so it's command line LA C 250 * (enter twice) - no slow dialog. Then zoom in and change back to previous layer state. You could make a toolbar button with that quick one.

Dan

(oh yeah - my pgp has LA as -LAYER for command line not dialog, use -LA for generic acad.)

[daron]

Check out where the comment from Cadaver, quoting mick comes from. here