Using LAYMRG and LAYDEL in Civil 3D

Many of the AutoCAD layer tools formerly known as bonus tools or express tools were added into core AutoCAD in the 2007 release. Two of these tools are Layer Delete and Layer Merge, both of which are great for getting rid of one or more layers without having to manually go find and erase all of the objects on that layer, then purge the layer.

However, use caution when using these tools in Civil 3D. As you may know, Civil 3D styles contain layer references, and LAYDEL/LAYMRG do not account for these layer references in the Civil 3D styles.  The result is empty or missing layers in your styles. If you apply one of these styles to an object, strange things can happen.

In this example, we’ve used LAYDEL to delete the layer “C-TINN”. Notice that this style now has empty spaces where “C-TINN” used to be referenced.

Civil 3D Style, after using LAYDEL

 

We ran AUDIT next and this is the result.

"AUDIT"
Fix any errors detected? [Yes/No] : y
Auditing Header
Auditing Tables
Auditing Entities Pass 1
Pass 1 1600    objects audited
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
Pass 1 3100    objects audited
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
Pass 1 3700    objects audited
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
Pass 1 4400    objects audited
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
Pass 1 5100    objects audited
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
AECC_SURFACE_STYLE (LAYER)   eWasErased  Standard
Pass 1 10100   objects audited
Pass 1 10900   objects audited
Auditing Entities Pass 2
Pass 2 10900   objects audited
Auditing Blocks
Total errors found 28 fixed 28

It seems fairly safe to use these tools in Civil 3D, as long as you run AUDIT afterwards and you are okay with those layers being replaced by layer “0” after you run AUDIT.

1 Comment

  1. Kampina

    Nice post…Thank you for sharing some good things!

    Reply

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