Discover how to utilize the layering functionality in Bluebeam to maximize efficiency when doing takeoffs. This article provides a step-by-step guide on how to create, manage and toggle the visibility of layers in Bluebeam to enhance productivity and reduce visual clutter.
Key Insights
- The layering functionality in Bluebeam allows for the organization of takeoffs by associating them with specific layers. These layers can be toggled on or off, providing a cleaner and less distracting workspace.
- Creating a new layer involves clicking the layers icon on the left-hand toolbar and choosing 'create.' Layers can be appropriately named and organized in a parent-child relationship for better categorization.
- After a layer is created, specific takeoffs can be assigned to it. The visibility of these takeoffs can be toggled on or off without losing any of the count data, providing a convenient method to manage complex projects with numerous takeoffs.
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Now that we have completed our area takeoffs of our flooring finishes, we can go ahead and move forward with some other takeoffs, like counts. And before we dive right into those counts, I do want to take a brief moment to talk about the layering functionality that exists within Bluebeard. So, as we do things like areas on our screen, we have a lot of colors and a lot of shapes taking up space on the plants.
When we start to add more and more lines and shapes and colors on the plants, they can get very busy and they can get quite distracting. So, because of this, Bluebeam has a layering functionality. And what that allows us to do is take our takeoffs that we've performed on the plants, associate them with a certain layer, and then just toggle on or off the visibility of that layer.
So, it doesn't take away any of the takeoffs that we've done. It really just hides things from view for the time being, so that we can do more takeoffs on the screen without it getting overly complicated. So, to look at layers, over on the left-hand toolbar, there is this layers icon.
So, let's click on that. And when we click on layers, we will see this particular plan has a lot of different layers already. These were just existing from the PDF plan set, and these are not anything that we're going to be looking at today.
So, what we can do is let's create our own new layer. So, what I did is I just created one called class takeoffs. So, you can just hit create.
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It could be at, after, or before. Let's just say before. And I just called it class takeoffs.
And this is me, basically, just creating a folder, almost, that I can house my different takeoffs underneath. So, you can see that I created class takeoffs. And if I hold the mouse on there, and I click on it again, I can actually add a child to that as well.
So, let's say class takeoffs, and then let's say flooring is the one that we're going to create right now. So, great. I've created a kind of parent-child relationship here, and I've created a flooring layer.
So, now that I have all my flooring takeoffs done, let's go ahead and select the music room takeoff. And let's hold down shift, and let's select the bathroom takeoff, the closet, as well as the rest of the guest room. Let's go ahead and right click over on my music room.
Let's go to the layer dropdown, and let's go into layer. And then let's just scroll up and assign my takeoffs to the flooring layer. So, once I've done that, all of these takeoffs are now associated with the flooring layer.
And you can see that the flooring layer has highlighted itself in color once I've added the takeoffs to it. So, let's now go ahead and turn off the flooring takeoff. So, great.
As soon as I toggle that takeoff layer off, you can see that we can no longer see any of those flooring takeoffs. So, it doesn't take away all the counts that I've done on those items. It simply hides them from view.
So, for now, let's go ahead and keep this flooring hidden while we go and do some counts.
