Organizing and Managing Object Properties
Layers and their states
Layers organize geometry and control color, linetype, lineweight, transparency, plot style, and plottability. Layer 0 exists in every drawing and cannot be deleted or renamed; DEFPOINTS is created with dimensions and is non-plotting. A layer can be off, frozen, locked, or set to no-plot. Off layers are invisible but still regenerate and can be selected; frozen layers are not regenerated, which speeds up large drawings; locked layers remain visible and snappable but cannot be edited. In layouts, VP Freeze hides a layer in one viewport only.
Object properties
Every object has properties that can be set explicitly or by layer. ByLayer (and ByBlock for objects inside blocks) inherits from the layer or block; explicit overrides win. The Properties palette and MATCHPROP copy settings; SETBYLAYER resets overrides back to ByLayer. LTSCALE controls global linetype scale, CELTSCALE the scale of new objects, PSLTSCALE the linetype scaling in paper space, and MSLTSCALE ties model-space linetypes to annotation scale. LWDISPLAY toggles lineweight display on screen.
Plot styles and standards
CTB plot style tables are color-dependent; STB tables are named and assigned per object or layer. Layer states and filters manage large layer lists, and DWS files check drawing standards.
Worked example: if a line shows the wrong color, check whether its Color property is an explicit override rather than ByLayer; SETBYLAYER fixes a whole selection at once.
Rule of thumb: freeze rather than turn off layers you do not need in a viewport, and use VP Freeze for per-viewport control.