CorelCAD 2014 Feature Highlight No. 7: New Layer Preview tool

Are you receiving CAD files from colleagues, suppliers or other business partners to source your projects from? If yes, you will know the problem of finding the relevant content in the dozens to hundred(s) of layers the .DWG file contains.

The new Layer Preview tool in CorelCAD 2014 will help you to isolate the relevant content and create meaningful views to selected layers in seconds.

Here's how it works: With a DWG file opened, launch the Layer Preview tool from the Format menu or the Layers tool bar.
In CorelCAD Ribbon UI on Windows, you will also find the Layer Preview tool in the Layers group of the Home tab.

In the Layer Preview dialog you will see a list of all the layers your active DWG file contains.

You can click on individual layers and the screen will immediately show the content of that layer only as if you were isolating it.
Using Shift or Ctrl key you can select a number of layers for previewing their content while the rest of the CAD file is hidden.

Instead of walking through the full list you can also use a filter expression to filter specific layers by their name. For example, *wall* as filter expression will return all layers with "wall" at any position (beginning, middle, end) in the layer name ("*" is used as wildcard in the filter expression).

The Preview button in the dialog is helpful for changing the drawing area you're looking at when selecting layers for preview. Clicking the Preview button will hide the dialog and you can use Zoom and Pan to display the desired drawing area for continuing the Layer Preview. This is particularly useful when nothing is visible with multiple layers selected. That will likely mean you're not looking at the right area of the drawing. Use ZOOM Fit for example to view the whole drawing. Right mouse click returns to the Layer Preview dialog.

When exiting the dialog you can select whether you want to return the layer state before launching the Layer Preview (keep "Restore Layers state when exit" checked) or the currently selected layers should be kept turned on, all others turned off as new layer state (remove checkmark from the "Restore Layers state..").

Also, you can maintain the view (zoom level, location, view direction) you have specified in the Preview session or restore the view that was set before launching the Layer Preview tool.

...a powerful tool for scanning complex DWG files and quickly identifying and selecting the subset of the content that's relevant for you.