Civil 3D Point Layer Confusion

Are you confused with all of the layering configuration possibilities in Civil 3D? Points can especially twist your brain since there are multiple places in our template settings for layers to be entered.

Before getting into the specifics for points, we shouldn’t start any Civil 3D layer discussion without mentioning Object Layers. Object Layers are very important settings because these determine what layers objects are inserted on upon creation. In regular AutoCAD, you may find yourself inserting blocks or creating linework mistakenly with the wrong layers set current, then moving those things to the correct layers manually. Too much of that is enough to drive me crazy. Object Layer configuration can be found in Drawing Settings.

Object Layers are assigned when Civil 3D objects of one of the listed types are created and with them, we can control visibility of objects globally. For example, if we wanted to turn off the visibility of all surfaces, we could shut off the object layer C-TOPO. We can differentiate between specific types of objects and object components using layers configured in our object styles.

With that being said, points are a bit more complex and are not provided for on the Object Layer tab of Drawing Settings. Using the Default Layer command setting for the Create Points command, an insertion layer for points can be configured.

One of the most common uses of points in any land development software is to represent observations collected during a land survey. When this data is imported into the software, we often end up with hundreds if not thousands of points which we may want to organize a bit more granularly. For this reason, we can configure what is called a description key set which assigns an insertion layer based on the description of the point.

In the above example, we are dealing with point descriptions for water distribution and are using a base layer for all points that fall into that category. So, if we wanted to freeze all water distribution points, we could shut off C-WATR.

Description Keys are also used to assign point styles and point label styles. If we look at the example for the description key FH, there is a specific style configured called WATR-FHYD-E that assigns a fire hydrant symbol to the marker. If we edit the style and look at the Display tab, we can see that the marker has been assigned to a more specific appurtenance layer and the associated label will be assigned to a specific text layer. This gives us the ability to shut off the visibility of water appurtenances by shutting off V-WATR-APPT. The same is true for the V-WATR-TEXT layer assigned to the label component.

There remains one more layer configuration that needs an explanation: the layer assigned in the label style. In the description keys, the label style called DESC is used to label any point with its description. This label style is not only being used for water distribution, but it is being used generically for other types of points as well that need a similar label. To avoid creating an over abundance of label styles that do the same thing with a different layer assigned, we can default to the label layer assignment in the point style if we configure layer 0 in the label style. Doing this allows the label layer in the point style to retain control. If a specific layer were assigned in the label style, it would override the one specified in the point style.

Understanding layer configuration for objects and styles enables us to produce organized templates adhering to good layer standards. This type of layer hierarchy can be applied and managed in other object categories as well.