Learned the hard way about layer thickness on a big AutoCAD project

I spent two whole days plotting a commercial building layout in Detroit and kept getting these weird gaps in the floor plan. Turned out my layer thickness was cranked up to 0.5 when it should have been 0.0 for the architectural base. A senior drafter glanced at my screen and asked if I was trying to draw with a magic marker. Has anyone else had a settings oversight that cost them hours?

3 comments

3 Comments

jenniferb532mo ago

Dude did you have object snap off too? I did something similar on a Detroit project a few years back - had my global width set to 0.5 by accident and spent an entire afternoon wondering why my walls looked like they were drawn with a Sharpie. The worst part was the plot preview looked fine until I actually printed. Now I keep a checklist taped to my monitor for layer settings before I start anything big. Always double check your PSLTSCALE and measure your lines with LIST command first thing.

amybarnes2mo ago

Totally! Took me three hours once because my lineweights were set way too thick.

casey3932mo ago

Two days seems like a long time to not notice something was off, but I guess we all get tunnel vision when we're cranking through work. A layer setting that thick would mess up snapping and object visibility way before the plot stage in my experience. Still, the senior drafter had a point about the magic marker thing, so maybe it was more about catching it earlier.