Imported AutoCAD drawings often contain more information than desired. Items such as construction lines, past renovations, electrical, ceiling, and floor grids can make the drawing quite cluttered and difficult to use. Layers can usually be turned off to remove the clutter in the drawing to make it more legible.
Example
Compare the drawings below. The left drawing has all the layers turned on while the drawing on the right has certain of layers turned off.
Identifying The Layers
The first step is to identify which layers hold the undesired items. Double left-click on one of the unwanted lines to open the Element Properties window. The name of the layer that the item resides on will be listed. We have done this to one of the grid lines in the image below.
In this example the grid lines are on a layer called "ceiling"
Turning off the Layer
Now that we know the layer name the item resides on, we can open the Layer Setup Window to turn the layer off.
- Click the Load Layer Setup button on your toolbar.
- Look for the layer you are interested in the Display Mode section on the right side of the Layer Setup Window.
- Left click on the layer to select it and then click the Off button.
- Click Ok to close the Layer Setup window and apply the change to your drawing.
After turning off the "ceiling" layer the grid lines are no longer visible in the drawing.
Simply repeat this process to identify and turn off the other layers of the remaining clutter to get a cleaned-up version of the drawing like below.TIP: On smaller drawings you may be tempted to just delete the undesired items instead of turning off layers. However for larger drawings turning off the layers can be a great time saver provided the file was logically layered when it was created. Also this can easily be undone. If you accidently turn off the wrong layer or if turning off the layer also removes items that need to be displayed, you can simply turn that layer back on.