Viewports and Defpoint layer

[dallredcadman]

I have always been told not to put anything but notes on the defpoint layer but where i work there is a lot of people that like to put Viewports on Defpoints. My understanding behind not putting a viewport on Defpoints is for the simple matter of possibly wanting the viewport to show and for easier manipulation in layer control. Is there any other reason besides that?

Thanks

[tedg]

I have always been told not to put anything but notes on the defpoint layer but where i work there is a lot of people that like to put Viewports on Defpoints. My understanding behind not putting a viewport on Defpoints is for the simple matter of possibly wanting the viewport to show and for easier manipulation in layer control. Is there any other reason besides that?

Thanks

I've seen that done allot, it ensures that the viewport will not be accidently plotted.

I think it goes back to earlier releases where you couldn't assign "no plot" to a layer, and was just carried forward. So the viewports could be seen and manipulated and left "on" when plotting.

We have a "no plot" layer for viewports called GI-VPRT that can be accidently left on and won't plot or could be frozen if you wanted.

As far as I know there's no harm in using the defpoints layer for viewports but others may disagree. But if you have the ability to have an assigned layer for viewports that match your layer naming convention, why not have one?

[Maverick91]

Using Defpoints layer for anything is not a good idea. True, it's a non-plotting layer, but there are other ways to make other layers non-plotting or not visible. Similarly, take care when using layer 0. Overall, this leads to better layer management and CAD standards.

[cadtag]

Layer 0 and DEFPOINTS are 'magic' layers. Adesk has programmed certain functionality in the application that is triggered by those names. It's not well documented, and using those two layer names for real design or drafting work is risky. The behavior observable today may or may not be followed up in the next release or service pack.

using those layer names for anything can and will result in people tryint to treat them as though they were normal layers, e.g. freezing DEFPOINTS to hide stuff from displaying. Once you start doing that, unexpected behavior results, because they are not normal layers.

It's an even worse drafting practice than using "STANDARD" as your sole text style and defining it to use a different shx file.

Bottom line is that the functionality people are using defpoints for is better served by using real layers with predictable behavior.

[rrancourt]

I agree with Ted's comment above. Most of our customizations have rolled over so to speak from earlier releases. We still have a viewport creation tool that will make a viewport on the "defpoints" layer that I use daily. It may be time to update the tool to put the viewports on a non-plotting layer though.

I have only had one problem with a viewport on the defpoints layer in the past and that was in version 2000 when I was in college. I was working on a 3D model and for some reason we could not reactivate the viewport after working in it for about 30 mins. Even my teacher was stumped and we ended up calling Autodesk. Unfortunately, I can't remember what the actual fix was or why it did it...

[david_peterson]

Using defpoints for anything other that what they were ment for is a bad idea. Nothing should ever go on this layer. The only reason the layer was there was for dimension points. Use a g-nplt or sim for non-plotting items. Defpoints for viewports is

[TerribleTim]

Just to throw my $0.98 ($0.02 after inflation) into the mix. . .

I agree with Ted, the defpoints layer viewport theory is from releases that had no "no-plot" layer feature. Build your own layer for your viewports, call it, oh I don't know, "g-vprt" or something like that. (mine is "cad-model-vprt) Make it "no-plot" and give it the most odd-ball color you can that matches NOTHING else. Makes it easy to understand when you see it in a drawing and more important, easy when someone outside your firm sees it. Imagine if you could just click on the object in question in ANY drawing and understand what it is by the layer name of the layer it is on!

[jaberwok]

I agree with the others - when the software produces layers for its own use we should not use those layers for other purposes. We do not know exactly how they are used and could create downstream problems by using them.

[dallredcadman]

Thank you all for your response. I have another question, what would be the best way to handle a rouge engineer that is putting all of their viewports on defpoints?

[Maverick91]

Thank you all for your response. I have another question, what would be the best way to handle a rouge engineer that is putting all of their viewports on defpoints?

Does your office have CAD standards? Is he adhering to them?

You could try explaining things to him, like we've discussed here.

Do you send your drawing files out of the office, either to other offices in the company or an another company? An unorganized dwg does reflect on your company almost as much as anything else that your company produces.