Viewing/Hiding lighting device symbols for designing and viewports

[jloganthomas]

I am trying to view only specific device types in design layers and viewports, is there an easy way to do this?
The solutions I've discovered are:

• Placing the different fixture types in different design layers, but I need to be able to use layers to delineate house positions, not fixture types
• Placing the different fixture types in different classes, but their label legends stay visible

[markdd]

Probably the best built-in way is to automatically Class them. This can be done automatically by using Spotlight Preferences and Classing By Instrument Type.

 

I am sure other folk will have other ideas. Data Visualization could be another route if you set it up carefully.

[Pat Stanford]

If you Edit your workspace you can add a command named Custom Visibility. I believe it is hidden in the Legacy category of menu commands.

 

Using this command you can create scripts that will change the visibility of objects.

 

If you choose to do this the very first script you need to create is Show ALL that will set all objects back to visible.

 

Since I use this on the fly I usually use Hide Selected or Hide Not Selected to clean up my view so I can see what I am working on.  Kind of similar to how you can use the Clip Cube, but without the adjustability.

 

If you regularly want to hide different types of LDs you should be able to make scripts for that.

 

Just another option.

 

I believe this was removed from the default workspaces because too many people were Hiding their objects and not understand how to get them back making a support issue.  That is why I recommend (strongly recommend, urgently recommend, require) that your first script should be SHOW ALL.

 

HTH

[spettitt]

6 hours ago, markdd said:

This can be done automatically by using Spotlight Preferences and Classing By Instrument Type.

 

*This* absolutely. I use a prefix of Lighting-_ (note that the hyphen delimiter triggers a sub-class of the 'Lighting' class). Therefore I have:

 

Lighting
	_InstrumentType1
	_InstrumentType2
	_InstrumentType3
	OtherLightingGuff
	OtherLightingGuff
	OtherLightingGuff
	OtherLightingGuff

 

The underscore means my fixture type classes are always at the top of the 'Lighting' grouped classes, so easy to find and toggle things on/off in any design layer or viewport.

Edited November 11, 2023 by spettitt