Michael’s Corner

Michael's Corner is a monthly publication written by Michael E. Beall, Autodesk Authorized Author and peripatetic AutoCAD trainer. Michael travels all over the USA, bringing his fantastic experience and great understanding of AutoCAD to his clients. Michael's Corner brings together many of the tips, tricks and methods developed during these training sessions for the benefit of all users.

Michael's Corner provides something for every AutoCAD user. Every month, a number of articles cover a wide range of topics, suitable for users at all levels, including "The Basics" for those just starting out. Essentially, the aim of Michael's Corner is to help all AutoCAD users work smarter and faster.

This month…

From the Vault

Originally published February 2015

Transparent Viewport Layers

OK, so just follow me here. I thought this was incredibly clever and I bumped into this when I was training the team at Semco Energy up in Port Huron, MI.

What We Know

• You can have a viewport overlap or within another viewport, and you can use Ctrl + R to toggle between them.
• One of the layer overrides in viewports is Transparency. [See Michael's Corner, December 2012]

In the following exercise, my Model space contains a Pipe Stand detail, along with a site drawing. The large viewport will be of the site, and is the viewport that I will set the transparency for all the layers.

I'll make a smaller viewport set inside the larger viewport, and that's the view where I will zoom up to the detail.

How To Overlap a Viewport with Transparent Layers

1. On a layout tab, create a large viewport and zoom to the desired area.

2. While you're still in Paper space, create a second, smaller viewport within the larger one.

3. Double-click in the large viewport, then use Ctrl + R to toggle into the small viewport. Change the view in the small viewport as necessary. In this example, I zoomed up to the pipe stand detail.

4. Toggle to the large viewport, then open the Layer Properties Manager.

5. Right-click anywhere, then click Select All.

6. Under the VP Transparency column, click any 0 in the list, enter a value of 75, then click OK.

   

7. Close Layer Properties Manager and you'll see the change in the large viewport, but the smaller viewport remains with the default layer display!

It's not something you're going to encounter all the time, but I thought it was pretty cool!!

Note: To remove the viewport override transparency setting, select all the layers, then right-click Remove Viewport Overrides ForAll LayersIn All Viewports, or whatever combination you would prefer.

Gold Star Tip: After configuring the transparency of those layers in a viewport, you may want to consider saving that condition as a layer state if you want to return to it again in that drawing, or use it in a different viewport.

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