Layers
General
In Layers tab, you can create as many layers as you like. You can use layers to control the colour, line type, line weight and plot style for your geometry (amongst other things) as well as the visibility of all the geometry on that layer.
Navigation
Go to the "Format" pull down menu > select "Layers" .
Layers editor
- New Layer: Create new layer
- Remove Layer: Delete the selected layer.
- Set Current: Use this function to make a selected/specific layer as current layer in the drawing. Multiple layers are not allowed to be set as current layer.
To remove unused layers, user may deletes the layers using function "Purge" under the "Tools" pulldown menu.
Layers settings

The information of the layer will only be shown in Layers settings when the objects assigned under a layer is drawn in the model.
- Status: If the layer is selected, the icon will be changing from
to
. Hence, anything drawn in the model will be defined under the selected layer.
- Name: This column shows the the name of the layers.
- On: Switching on
the layer will makes the object which defined in the corresponding layer visible in the model, likewise switching it off
will makes object invisible.
- Frozen: Freezing a layer has the same visible effect as switching a layer off. The difference, however, freezing a layer in ProtaDetails will release it from memory, and subsequently improve the overall software performance, such as increase speed of zoom, pan, object selection, reduce regeneration time for exceeding large and complex drawings etc. Users are advised to freeze the layer they want to invisible for long period.
- Locked: The object are not editable in Locked layer. This function is useful when user wants to view the information on a layer for reference but do not want to edit the objects in that layer.
- Color: The objects that stored under the layer display the color assigned to the current layer.
- Line Type: Line type is a visual property assigned to geometric objects. The line type settings defines the appearance of geometric objects. Line type patterns available in ProtaDetails are Center, Dashdot, Hidden etc.
If user picks the Line Type: - BYLAYER: Display the objects with the line type assigned to the current layer.
- BYBLOCK: Display objects with the current linetype until the objects are assigned or combined into a block definition.
- Line Weight: User can choose the thickness and darkness of the lines based on their preference. The current lineweight is assigned to drawn objects until another lineweight is set as current.
If user picks the Line Type: - LW_BYLAYER: Objects drawn are created with the lineweight assigned to the current layer.
- LW_BYBLOCK: Objects drawn are created using the default lineweight until the objects are grouped into a block definition..
In Layers, users are allowed to change the properties and visibility of lines. Users may edit other properties such as text style, text height, font, opacity in "Layers and Text Style" under "Setting" pull down menu. For more details, please refer to Layer and Color Settings.
Example: How to turn on/off the column loads on the drawing once it is generated?
From "Layers" Dialog use "Column Aux Text" to switch column load texts on/off. See image below: