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Turning block or block visibility, how to turn on or off?

Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2022 2:05 pm
by kgfaison
I would like to turn on or off the visibility of groups and/or blocks composed of boxes, polylines,etc placed on different layers.

When I group these items into a "group" I find I can select the group and edit the visibility on the properties dialog to turn it off. Once I do this, I cannot select the group so I can turn the visibility property back on. Is there an alternate way to select the group once it is not visible on the screen?

2nd question,

Is there a way to change visibility of a block composed of parts on different layers?

Thanks,
Kevin

Re: Turning block or block visibility, how to turn on or off?

Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2022 7:54 pm
by QuanNguyen
Hi Kevin,

You can use the commands HideObjects and UnisolatedObjects instead.

Regards,

Re: Turning block or block visibility, how to turn on or off?

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2022 12:10 am
by sln8458
Hi Kevin,
An alternative would be to save the block as a drawing and the use XREF to insert the new drawing/block on a new layer.
eg: if you save a block as FRED1.dwg. Add a new layer called FRED1, set this ti the active layer and insert FRED1 where you want.

You can turn layer FRED1 off, or freeze, this will hide the block & you can thaw and turn it back on.

Steve

Re: Turning block or block visibility, how to turn on or off?

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2022 12:58 pm
by kgfaison
Hi Quan & Steve,

Thanks for your kind responses.

I tried the HideObjects and Unhide (UnisolatedObjects) commands and that did the trick for me. It worked for blocks created from drawing files and blocks defined using XREF manager.

I also tried the XREF method suggested by Steve... insert the new block on layer FRED. That worked fine when the source drawing had a single layer. However, my source drawing has multiple layers and turning off "Fred" only turns off layer 0 in the source dwg, not the additional layers that are created when importing via XREF. Perhaps there is a way to accomplish this, not sure.

In any case, I can go forward in my work with the HideObject approach.

I have another question relating to rendering with intellicad and Artisan and differences I see when using XREF's. I'll make a new posting for that.

Thanks again,
Kevin

Re: Turning block or block visibility, how to turn on or off?

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2022 12:25 am
by sln8458
Try 'freezing' the layer, instead of turning it off.

I use this method almost daily and use freeze on the parent layer.
You can also freeze any layer in the xref individually if you choose.

Steve

Re: Turning block or block visibility, how to turn on or off?

Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2022 8:27 am
by kgfaison
Thank you Steve. I have been using the freeze lay method as you suggest. And maybe getting a little better about organizing my top level drawing layers when adding block defined as lower level drawings. I create a drawing layer specifically assigned to the complex block I am adding. For instance, loghouse_block holds the inserted loghouse.dwg block. This makes it easy to turn the whole think on and off (using freeze) rather than doing each of the many (imported) layers, a methodology suggested here that I am now applying.

Thanks again for all the help!

BTW, model is our farmhouse that was damaged during summer storm. We are planning repair of porch which was torn off.
Image
Kevin

Re: Turning block or block visibility, how to turn on or off?

Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2022 8:47 am
by sln8458
Hi Kevin,

I have been using that method for a number of years, and like you I have a specific layer for each Xref block.
I had to find a way of managing what was on screen to ease the load on my PC. when I started working on these:
Image
(sorry about the image size :) )

All of the pipework is made up of individual pipes, all coming together in one single piping layout.
Then there is the main steel jacket.
Individual deck layouts, with individual vessels etc etc

By using 'freeze' rather than 'off' removes components from the 'regen' number crunching for the PC.

Anyway, glad to help.
SteveN.
PS.
It's an offshore Gas Compression Platform here in the UK, with twin compressors & coolers.

Re: Turning block or block visibility, how to turn on or off?

Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2022 9:10 am
by kgfaison
Steve,

That is a very impressive project! Much more complex than anything I am doing.
I enjoyed seeing it!

Paper space, viewports and dimensioning are topics I hope to tackle soon. I have been pretty happy with intellicad so far, especially at this price point.

All the best,
Kevin

Re: Turning block or block visibility, how to turn on or off?

Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2022 9:19 am
by sln8458
Hi Kevin,

Thanks for the complement, but if you break it down into small chunks, a simple section of pipe or a length of steel then it is not that difficult
(shssh don't tell my clients, :) they give me old paper drawings and I produce a CAD model, some of the paper drawings have had my name on them !! :) )

Also, as you have found out, layer management can make it a lot easier.