Can we talk about my old layer setup vs my new one?

I used to pile all my layers in CAD on one single level back when I started drafting 4 years ago. Everything was jumbled together like a mess and it drove my senior drafter crazy. She finally pulled me aside last January and showed me her layer naming system with like 20 different categories. I switched to separating structural from mechanical and electrical stuff into their own layers with a color code. Now I can toggle things on and off without hunting through a sea of lines. It cut my revision time down by maybe 40 percent since I don't have to redraw stuff that gets hidden. Has anyone else had that moment where a small change in how you organize things saves you hours?

3 comments

3 Comments

adam_patel17d ago

Wait, is that really a 40 percent cut in revision time youre seeing? I gotta say I think that number might be a bit off unless you were literally redrawing entire sections from scratch every time before. Like if you had a mess where you couldnt even find a line to move it that would kill your speed but most of the time youre still doing the actual revision work like changing a beam size or moving a duct. The color coding and toggling definitely speeds up the hunting part but the real heavy lifting of drafting still stays the same. Maybe its more like 20-30 percent once you factor in how often you actually spend hunting versus actually editing.

annaw7317d ago

That color coding tip alone sounds like a lifesaver. Being able to just toggle entire systems on or off beats hunting through a mess of random lines every single time. Revising in half the time is a huge win for something that costs almost nothing to fix. Have you added any extra layers since you switched to the new system?

river_allen17d ago

Oh yeah totally agree with adam_patel here. The hunting part gets way faster but the actual editing work still takes the same time. I did the same thing with my own setup using different linetypes for each system and it probably cut my overall time by like a quarter maybe. The color coding is great for finding stuff quick but you still gotta move beams and stuff which takes forever no matter what.