Draw Order

Draw order defines how coincidental or overlapping objects are displayed in front or back without changing their physical positions.

In the animation below, the frame, lenses, and sky reflections of the glasses are hatches. They are overlapped on the same plane. The draw order commands arrange the sky reflection to display in front of the lens, and the lens in front of the frame.

The sky reflection is brought to front, and then the lens is brought one level up.

Note

  • Objects within blocks maintain and display the draw order set before the block was created. When two blocks overlap, the one moved to display above the other will mask the block below.
  • Selected (highlighted) objects always draw on top.
  • New objects are not given a draw order by default.
  • A set of objects in both the layout space and in the model viewport cannot be controlled with draw order. Draw order is restricted to modifying the display of objects in the same space.

Draw order commands

BringToFront

Toolbar Menu

Draw Order

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Bring to Front

The BringToFront command makes the selected object display in front of all other objects.

The blue hatch is brought all the way up to draw on top.
 

Notes: Only the draw order of annotations, hatches, details, curves, and point objects can be changed. Surfaces, meshes, and SubDs cannot be selected by the draw order commands. Therefore, you cannot send a surface behind a hatch, but you can bring a hatch in front of a surface.

BringForward

Toolbar Menu

Draw Order

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Bring Forward

The BringForward command makes the selected object display one level up in the draw order.

The blue hatch is brought one level up from the bottom to draw between the purple and green hatches.
 

Notes: Only the draw order of annotations, hatches, details, curves, and point objects can be changed. Surfaces, meshes, and SubDs cannot be selected by the draw order commands. Therefore, you cannot send a surface behind a hatch, but you can bring a hatch in front of a surface.

SendToBack

Toolbar Menu

Draw Order

Edit

Arrange >

Send to Back

The SendToBack command makes the selected object display behind all other objects.

The green hatch is sent all the way down to draw at bottom.

 

Notes: Only the draw order of annotations, hatches, details, curves, and point objects can be changed. Surfaces, meshes, and SubDs cannot be selected by the draw order commands. Therefore, you cannot send a surface behind a hatch, but you can bring a hatch in front of a surface.

SendBackward

Toolbar Menu

Draw Order

Edit

Arrange >

Send Backward

The SendBackward command makes the selected object display one level down in the draw order.

The green hatch is sent one level down from the top to draw between the purple and blue hatches.
 

Notes: Only the draw order of annotations, hatches, details, curves, and point objects can be changed. Surfaces, meshes, and SubDs cannot be selected by the draw order commands. Therefore, you cannot send a surface behind a hatch, but you can bring a hatch in front of a surface.

ClearDrawOrder

Toolbar Menu

Draw Order

Edit

Arrange >

Clear Draw Order

The ClearDrawOrder command removes the draw order tags from selected objects. The objects now display in their original order.

The draw order of the hatches is cleared.

See also

Use drafting tools