Layers for Floorplans

[Vernita]

I am doing floorplans for a house using Visio 2007 (and I'm new to the
product). I have created one room based on the original blueprint (walls,
doors, windows, etc.) Each item looks like it is considered a layer in the
layer properties chart. For a redesign of the same space, I have added new
walls, doors, fixtures, etc. and those also show up as additional layers. I
would like to have one layer called "original" and associate the
corresponding walls, doors, fixtures to go in that layer. I would like to
have another layer called "redesign 1" and have the associated items
associated with that layer. All my plumbing fixtures for example
automatically got put together in one layer and I need them on different
layers. I guess I don't see how to assign multiple shapes, measurements,
text, etc. to be in one layer and other items to be in another layer. It
seems that you just see all the items at once and mark weather you want them
to be visible or not. I could easily have have 50 or 100 items for one room
so that would be really difficult. Is there a way to do what I'm asking?
Any pointers on how I can learn to do this would be helpful. Thanks!

 

[Chris Roth [Visio MVP]]

Hi Vernita,

You simply select shapes, then choose: Format > Layer to assign a shape
to a layer. There is also a layer drop-down on the Format toolbar.

To view and manage layers, View > Layer Properties brings up a window
that list all the layers, and allows you to set visibility and to lock
individual layers. The View toolbar alos has a button to get to this
dialog (which unfortunately doesn't stay open while you work...)

Shapes can belong to multiple layers which can be cool or confusing, so
watch out for that.

I believe your shapes come pre-assigned to some built-in layers. You can
simply re-assign them to the "Re-design 1" layer, the "Re-design 2", etc.

You could also employ background pages instead of layers. Each re-design
could live on a separate page, while the background would be the
original floorplan. You set up foreground/background properties via the
File > Page Setup > Page Properties Tab dialog. You just assign the
background page to each foreground page.

You will lose snapping ability, and the ability to directly edit the
background page, which can be good and bad (you have to explicitly go to
the background page to edit the floorplan), but then you won't always be
accidentally moving the floorplan around either!

Foreground pages for each re-design would make printing the whole thing
a lot easier as well.


--
Hope this helps,

Chris Roth
Visio MVP


Visio Guy: Smart Graphics for Visual People

Articles: http://www.visguy.com
Shapes: http://www.visguy.com/shapes
Dev: http://www.visguy.com/category/development/
Forum: http://www.viguy.com/vgforum

 

[David Parker]

Here's a couple of articles for you:

http://www.design-drawing.com/visio/LayVis.htm

http://bvisual.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!3350D61BC93733A9!180.entry

 

[Vernita]

Thanks! I was trying to do all that from View > Layer Properties and it
wasn't working. Format > Layer was the key!! Big difference ... thanks