AutoCAD Mechanical 2009: Layer Management Tools

By Kevin Bosch,
MCAD Solutions Engineer
Hagerman & Company

The release of AutoCAD^® Mechanical 2009 came with some significant changes and upgraded tools. One of the areas of great benefit is layer management and configuration. In previous releases it was somewhat difficult to configure and manage layers with the Mechanical interface. There were a series of dialog boxes that were difficult to navigate.

The updates in the newest release make the process much easier. There are only two areas that need to be dealt with to configure a standard and then to manage or customize the existing standard with individual drawings. The first area to review is the Object Property Settings box.  Object Properties are the settings of Layer, Color, Linetype, and Lineweight used by AutoCAD Mechanical when activating Mechanical Commands such as AMCONSTLINES, AMSHIDE, AMTEXT, etc. This box is found by going to the Tools menu>Options>AM:Standards tab.

To set the object properties for the standard, right click on the standard name in the Standard elements: field and select Settings. This will bring up the Standard Settings for <Current Standard>.

This box has fields for setting standard Text style, Leader style and Symbols. There is also a field for managing the Object Properties. This field contains a check box for disabling the properties that are managed by AutoCAD Mechanical and a “Settings” button for configuring the properties managed by the various AutoCAD Mechanical commands. Caution should be used when disabling the option to let AutoCAD Mechanical manage object properties. This would remove a significant amount of the intelligence that is built into the operation of the software.

To configure the settings of the object properties click the “Settings” button. The Object Property Settings box is displayed.

The Object properties are broken down into categories in the left pane. The individual properties and their settings are displayed in the center pane. A preview of the affected objects is shown in the right pane. By selecting a cell within the Show properties for <Current active Category> area, users can change the options for that cell. As an example, selecting the Layer cell for the Contour 1 property displays the Object Property Settings – Select Layer box.

Within this box, users can browse to select a different Layer or use the right-click menu to create new layers, rename layers or delete layers.

Within the primary Object Property Settings box, there is an option to display all of the categories that use the selected object and would be affected by any changes.

When this is selected, the other categories that contain the specified object are highlighted as shown above. A change to a property in one category will activate the option to change the property in the other categories.

The second area to review is the Mechanical Layer Manager. The Command is AMLAYER. This tool can also be found at the top of the Format menu or on the Mechanical Layer Toolbar. The dialogue box for the Mechanical Layer Manager has the same look and feel as the old AutoCAD Layer Manager.

The toolbar at the top of the box contains tools to Create New Layers or Layer Definitions, Delete, Set current, Check, Move into, Highlight and Show or hide layer definitions (this removes the inactive layers from the list.)

The right-click menu gives additional access to converting an AutoCAD Layer to a Mechanical Layer (capable of being used for Mechanical Object Properties), Use as Selection Set, Invert Selection, Simple View (Changes the Column Display to Status, Name, On, Freeze, Lock and Description) or Full View which displays the following Columns:

Status (Indicates that a layer is a Mechanical Layer, A Mechanical Layer that does not get replicated in Layer Groups, or An AutoCAD Layer.) Name, On, Freeze, Lock, Color, Linetype, Lineweight, Plot, Replicate in Layer Groups, Override Color by Layer Groups, Associated Objects and description.

Active Layers within the drawing, display a status icon or the “Current” check mark, as well as the “On,” “Freeze” and “Lock” icons. Layers that are simply “Layer definitions” to be used by object properties do not have these icons and their names are grayed out until they become active in the drawing.

These updates make the process of configuring and managing layers with AutoCAD Mechanical much more efficient and less tedious than in the past. With the Layers Configured it is always best practice to save the file as a dwt template to be used by all of the users within the company, which allows for greater conformity to company standards as designs are being created.