Surveyors Layers Strategy

[Andrew608]

I'm curious to know how you route builders are using layers to your advantage.

I've been playing with building some model railroad type layouts and i've found it very useful to have one layer for all my "room/benchwork" objects, like my floors, walls, fascia etc.. and have it locked. This prevents me from accidentally delete them later on.


What are others doing to manage routes? Do you add all tracks to one layer, all buildings to another? Same for scenery?

 

[pware]

I have found, from experience, that the following works best for me.

• All track objects (track, signals, junctions, speed signs, active industries, etc), with the exception of trackmarks and triggers, go into the base route layer
• Scenery items that will not change from one session to another go into the base route layer. The exception being those troublesome scenery items that sit on top of another item (e.g. a station seat or luggage on a platform object) that makes them impossible to move without first moving the lower object - they go into a separate route layer. This way I can lock the base route layer and then move the smaller object

Some creators place all trees into a separate route layer. I can see some advantages in this but it is not something that I am currently doing.

• All consists go into a consist layer in the session layer group
• All scenery items that will change from one session to another (e.g. delivery trucks at a factory for a weekday freight session) go into a separate session layer
• Trackmarks and triggers go into a separate session layer

I add an empty session layer using the name of the session. This is useful when you are working on several session with the same layout to remind you which session you are in.

I lock all layers that I am not currently working in.

 

[Andrew608]

Excellent. Thanks for these tips. Exactly what I was interested in.