By Dennis Collin
Layer filters are vital in efficient workflows when working with drawings with large numbers of layers, often including Xrefs (External Reference Files). When a layer filter is selected in the Filters panel of the Layer Properties Manager, only the layers that match the properties specified in the filter are displayed in the layer list. Filtering layers reduces a long list of layers to only those that are currently relevant.
Layer filters, along with layer states, are useful tools to use in drawing management. Unfortunately, whilst Layer States can be transferred to different drawings, Layer Property Filters cannot. This limitation can be overcome by making use of the Layer Filter Transfer Tool Add-in on the Autodesk App store.
Once installed the filter transfer tool will appear under the add-ins tab.
The layer filter tools are essentially just a simple export and import function. The Export Layer filters command will export all the Layer filters to a LFE file format. This exported format can then be imported to another drawing. The file itself is just a simple text format file that can be accessed from Notepad or similar and as can be seen in the image below contains all the layer filters set in a drawing.
The Layer Transfer Tool is a free add-in and is available for all current AutoCAD versions (2018-2022) and can be downloaded from the App store here:
https://apps.autodesk.com/ACD/en/Detail/Index?id=3978078898765345668&appLang=en&os=Win32_64
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Layer management, including the use of filters, states, Blocks, Xrefs and templates are covered in our 2-day AutoCAD Intermediate Course. For more details on this visit https://training.cadline.co.uk/ and have a live chat with one of the team. Alternatively, requirements can be discussed on the phone on 01784 419922.