Drawing Layer Visibility & Locking

Drawing layers have some special controls with visibility, opacity, and locking that differentiate them from data layers.

Adjust Opacity

Each Layer in your project appears as a row or line item in the Layer Palette. To adjust the visibility, mouse over the layer.

The visibility controls appear.

To adjust opacity, use the +/- buttons, type a number (between 1-100), or click and drag within the box to scrub.

To make a layer more transparent, reduce the percentage.

To make layers more opaque, increase the percentage.

The opacity settings work the same for drawing layers as they do for data layers. However, opacity on drawing layers also affects shadow visibility!

Any drawing layer with opacity at less than 100% will not have any shadows.

Click the eyeball to instantly show or hide a layer.

When a layer is hidden, it displays in grey in the Layer Tree and the data is not shown on the map.

Changing layer opacity and visibility is not automatically saved.

To save layer visibility and groups, click the save icon to make the current that the project default.

This allows for co-authoring. Users my turn layers on and off in a working state without affecting other editors.

The visibility settings work the same for drawing layers as they do for data layers.

However, layer visibility also affects Urban Calculations!

Urban will calculation for any layer that is at least 1% visible. If a layer is off, it will not contribute to Urban Calculations.

Locking is a special setting available for drawing layers.

Click the Lock icon on the layer to lock it.

When a layer is locked, you cannot select its geometry by clicking or using select tools on the map.

To unlock a layer, click the lock icon again.