Layers/sublayers/groups and draftview questions/suggestions

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dimitar
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Layers/sublayers/groups and draftview questions/suggestions

Post by dimitar »

Can layers have sublayers? It would be a great option to add.

What's the best way that people organise their documents into layers? I find that sometimes I want to show certain layers techdraw views.
For example I am making electrical drawings and want to be able to show just the relevant layers on a page. Right now, it seems I can only show one layer at a time or the whole LayerContainer, but nothing in between. It would be useful for DraftView to be able to take on multiple objects similar to ArchView

I have tried to duplicate the LayerContainer to make a new one and just select it but it becomes a mess with duplicated or linked layers, etc. I looked at the API, but I can't find a way to potentially create a new blank layer Container. It would be great if there is a way to create a new one via the API


But maybe the solution is different. What I like about layers is that they are glorified groups with overrides for styles so one of the simplest ways to make sure there are consistent styles throughout. However they are limited in nesting abilities. If all groups have the ability to set layer and print layer properties, then the issue would be solved quite well.


As for objects in groups within layers, it seems that the layer cannot inherit the property of the objects

As for DraftView, I am finding out that even if the Override Style property is set to False, dashed lines appear as solid instead of dashed. I have unset the Line Style property from solid to none. It's string so i just deleted the string Solid. But here is the output
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dimitar
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Re: Layers/sublayers/groups and draftview questions/suggestions

Post by dimitar »

Another paper cut of sorts - when using draft/bim copy to duplicate an object in a layer, the new copy stays inside the layer. When copying an object in a group, the object is outside the group and needs to manually be placed back in the group. The group behaviour should match the layer behaviour.
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Re: Layers/sublayers/groups and draftview questions/suggestions

Post by dimitar »

Another paper cut - objects are inside of a group inside of a layer, draft/bim copy acts like inside any other group and places the copied object outside of the group and outside of the layer.
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Re: Layers/sublayers/groups and draftview questions/suggestions

Post by dimitar »

Single type of group suggestion

As I continue to work on this, I believe that Layer, Group, and a Blank building part should be one tool, with the same options to override style, grouping, and potential IFC tagging. However, at tho moment, in my project, of 450 m2 clinic, I don't use building parts for organisations since they seem to be much slower. For example, when I drag elements in and out of a building part, there is always a lag that I don't experience with plain old groups.

Instead of having three separate things that overlap a lot, why not have one container that can act as all three, has the speed of groups, has the automatic grouping behavior when copying objects of a layer, contains style overrides of a layer and building part, and can be tagged with IFC properties?

Filter-based smart groups

I would also like to propose the ability to automatically group elements. We need to have filter-based groups that can take any object property as filter for grouping behavior. Examples could be layer colours, object types (line, wall, curve, slab, etc).

Techdraw views

So far, the weakest part of Freecad is documentation. (Object transforms are also up there but that's a topic for a separate post). Even though I am now able to produce good quality plans on a level that I am used to with other software, the method to get there is painful and feels like there is a lot of redundancy. This occurs due to the fact that ArchViews and DraftViews completely override most object styles and oversimplify the process of producing drawings. If additional lineweights are required besides cut and non-cut, the project need to be broken into more Archviews or DraftViews. Furthermore, Archview can take multiple object inputs (single object, group, layer or buildingpart), whereas Draftview can take only one object at a time, and not all kinds of objects. In some ways draftview works betters since there is at least the ability to not override the styles. However, it doesn't work for dashed lines. So more draftviews would be required, to get the correct style for a drawing output.

So, once we have the organisation of groups/layers/building parts, and then we have to somehow regroup those elements into archviews and draft views to have the correct styling for drawings output. This becomes even more difficult to achieve with yet another step and that is that elements in a techdraw page always move and are referenced by a bounding box of the selected elemnts. So if more or less elements are added that changed the bounding box, then the arch or draft view needs to be manually tweaked on the page to kind of align.

I propose instead that there is an option to completely pass-through inherited styles for both arch and draft views, including dashed lines. With the kind of universal super group mentioned above, there should be one less thing to worry about - one draft view for 2d elements, one arch view for 3d elements, both based on specific groups and/or section.

And yes, as mentioned, maybe this should be a topic on its own, but draftview objects need to work from an absolute basepoint instead of bounding box of the selected elements. It makes it quite difficult to work. Furthermore, text in draft views is hard to work with as it is only aligned in the center. It should have, left, and right alignment options.

I have been meaning to start a separate post documenting my progress of my current project, but I really haven't had any time free whatsoever. In any case, here is the current output. And again, everything is doable in its current form, but I believe that with few adjustments the workflow can be infinitely better and more optimal.
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Roy_043
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Re: Layers/sublayers/groups and draftview questions/suggestions

Post by Roy_043 »

Two remarks:

Once created a TechDraw_DraftView will accept a Std_Group as its Source object. The Group can contain several objects.

Objects can be nested in a Draft_Layer and a Std_Group at the same time.
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Re: Layers/sublayers/groups and draftview questions/suggestions

Post by paullee »

I haven't tried much about Layer but also remember DraftView accept a Group - though I search my model and found I do not use this (yet?).

There isn't a clear picture for me how to do a proper drawings as I could do in AutoCad years ago. Maybe some simple example models/TechDraw could exemplify what is best workflow and what can be improved, there are many details here I couldn't understand.


Incidentally, I am always curious where to find the furnitures and equipments used in the model ?
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Re: Layers/sublayers/groups and draftview questions/suggestions

Post by dimitar »

Roy_043 wrote: Thu Mar 03, 2022 5:52 pm Two remarks:

Once created a TechDraw_DraftView will accept a Std_Group as its Source object. The Group can contain several objects.

Objects can be nested in a Draft_Layer and a Std_Group at the same time.
Groups do work, but they don't have visual style overrides like layers do, and they are such a pain to work with. Even with Autogroup set to the specific group, using draft copy results in the copied object being outside of the group and in the root layers. Having said that, I do work mostly with groups, since they are the simplest and easiest.

As for buildingparts for general organisation i find them a bit clumsy. Dragging objects in them is slower than in groups, even in a simple file with few objects. And since I create a lot of elements that either get cloned or linked throughout the project near the origin, the axes and tags for building parts get in the way.

Groups suggested workflow

Blender has good and straightforward organisational structure. There is always an active collection (or in freecad group/layer/buildingpart). everything new goes in the active collection. Collections can be infintely nested, and the active collection can multiple levels down. Objects that are being duplicated get preserved in the collection of the original object. This is the behaviour I would like to propose for Freecad as well.
paullee wrote: Thu Mar 03, 2022 6:10 pm I haven't tried much about Layer but also remember DraftView accept a Group - though I search my model and found I do not use this (yet?).

There isn't a clear picture for me how to do a proper drawings as I could do in AutoCad years ago. Maybe some simple example models/TechDraw could exemplify what is best workflow and what can be improved, there are many details here I couldn't understand.


Incidentally, I am always curious where to find the furnitures and equipments used in the model ?
Don't have a clear picture either, but trying to do as few views as possible due to the fact that multiple views on a techdraw word censored constantly misalign as they are based on bounding box instead of an absolute coordinate in space (as in autocad and rhino details/views on a page). However, I have an arch view based on a section for 3d elements and a draft view for 2d elements.

A for furniture, I search all the online sources listed on the objects library tool in the BIM WB. As for my project, I've found a few simple chairs, and the dental/medical chair. The rest of the things, I've made myself but they are fairly simple and straightforward.
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Re: Layers/sublayers/groups and draftview questions/suggestions

Post by paullee »

dimitar wrote: Sat Mar 05, 2022 5:47 pm Don't have a clear picture either, but trying to do as few views as possible due to the fact that multiple views on a techdraw word sensored constantly misalign as they are based on bounding box instead of an absolute coordinate in space (as in autocad and rhino details/views on a page). However, I have an arch view based on a section for 3d elements and a draft view for 2d elements.

A for furniture, I search all the online sources listed on the objects library tool in the BIM WB. As for my project, I've found a few simple chairs, and the dental/medical chair. The rest of the things, I've made myself but they are fairly simple and straightforward.
Check @yorik latest blog, he strongly suggest to do a Draft Shape2DView, then put the shape result to TechDraw (seems to be by DraftView? I do not remember), in lieu of ArchView.

Thanks for the tips about furniture. I mostly worked on Arch only instead of BIM WB :)
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Re: Layers/sublayers/groups and draftview questions/suggestions

Post by dimitar »

paullee wrote: Sat Mar 05, 2022 8:42 pm
Check @yorik latest blog, he strongly suggest to do a Draft Shape2DView, then put the shape result to TechDraw (seems to be by DraftView? I do not remember), in lieu of ArchView.

Thanks for the tips about furniture. I mostly worked on Arch only instead of BIM WB :)
Yes, I read that blog post, but it feels like there's even less availities to adjust or inherit the text style with Shape2DView. Will explore more, but it seems like yet another step in between.

Cheers!
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Re: Layers/sublayers/groups and draftview questions/suggestions

Post by paullee »

Indeed more steps, but it seems more ease of control in lightweight / line style... than coding the same in ArchView I with more cryptic attributes for users to select I supposed :lol:

I have yet to explore that workflow too, and see if there is something that codes / script can help :D
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