Mastering Layers in DraftSight: A Comprehensive Guide to Optimizing Your Workflow

Mastering layers in DraftSight can optimize your workflow and increase your efficiency. This comprehensive guide aims to provide insights about how to use layers to organize your drawings effectively in DraftSight.

Using layers to group similar entities and control their appearance and visibility is a crucial aspect of CAD work. This feature has been one of the main reasons CAD drafting has overtaken traditional board drafting. A significant amount of time is spent interacting with layers, including their creation, standardization, and visibility management.

DraftSight has come up with a solution named Layer States to optimize your workflow. This feature allows you to save the current visibility and property states to a named set in your drawing, which can be easily retrieved when needed. Let's explore how to use this feature effectively.

Creating Layer States in DraftSight

In the Layers Manager dialog, locate the Layer States icon in the upper right corner. For instance, if you have isolated a particular layer and wish to save the current state of your layers, click on the Layer States icon to open the Layer States Manager dialog. The middle panel displays a list of any existing layer states in the drawing.

To add a new layer state, click the Add button and give it a name. The tool will save a snapshot of the current settings and add it to the list. The left side panel will display all the layer visibility and properties that will be restored once the layer state is activated. These are all checked by default, but you can fine-tune your layer state here.

Activating a listed layer state is easy. Just highlight the state and either click the Activate button on the right, or right-click and select Activate from the pop-up menu.

Accessing Layer States Manager

Accessing the Layer States Manager is possible without opening the Layers Manager dialog. Its icon is located in the Layers panel of the ribbon, next to the Layer State pulldown menu (where it is also a menu item called Manage Layer State). The pulldown provides an easy way to activate your existing layer states. Simply click on the state name to activate it.

Importing and Exporting Layer States

You can also import and export your drawing’s layer state to an external file. This is particularly useful if you want to apply the same layer state to another drawing or if the original drawing file gets deleted or corrupted. These tools are located on the right-side panel of the Layer States Manager dialog box.

The export and import functions use a text file with the extension of LAS. When you import an LAS file, it will be added to your layer states list, where you can activate it from the Layer States dialog box, or from the ribbon panel pulldown menu.

Conclusion

DraftSight’s layer states offer great power and can significantly increase your efficiency. If you're already a DraftSight user, we strongly recommend taking full advantage of this feature. If you're not, now would be a great time to start exploring the benefits of this robust CAD software.

For more information about the newest and most advanced design software technology, feel free to reach out to our sales team at NOVEDGE.