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Layers

The Layers section is the middle of the left panel, and it is the stack as you view it. It shows which stack the viewport is showing, where the design is anchored in it, how far it is exploded, and one row per layer. Adding a layer and setting its thickness, material or process is the Stack window’s job; this section holds the controls you reach for while drawing.

The stack group

stack names the stack driving the viewport, and picking another one makes it the active stack: the design rebuilds against its thicknesses, materials and processes. That is a design edit and one undo step, not a view setting. The pencil beside it opens the Stack window.

base layer is the layer of that stack the open component anchors at — its own layer 0 sits there. The row is absent while the stack has no layers. See Layers, stacks & processes for the difference between this anchor and the active layer.

Explode opens a gap between the layers, from 0 — the stack as it bonds — up to 5000 µm. The gap runs along the stack axis, so the 3D view is where it shows, and the camera pulls back as you drag so the taller stack stays framed. Shapes are drawn opaque, so explode is how you see one layer under another. Like the grid pitch it is a preference: outside the design, outside undo, and kept between sessions (Settings).

The layer rows

The section shows one row per layer of the active stack, an empty layer included. An empty layer has nothing to show, but it can be made active and drawn on. A stack with no layers reads (no layers).

The swatch is the layer’s color in the viewport, shaded by the layer’s default face and muted while the layer is not the active one.

Layer N is the pick: clicking the label makes that layer active, and the active layer is drawn vividly against the muted rest. It changes nothing in the design and costs no undo step. There is always one active layer, so a click on the active row does nothing.

The checkbox at the end of the row hides the layer. It is disabled on the active row — you author on what you can see, and the tooltip says so. A slab carrying features on both of its faces gets two toggles instead, tagged T and B, and an empty layer gets none — there is nothing there to show or hide.

Hiding is a view state and never an edit: nothing is deleted, and an export is unaffected. It does change what the pointer can reach: you cannot select a shape on a hidden layer, and a region you draw will not weld to one. Visibility resets when you open another component (Components & Libraries), and making a hidden layer active shows it again. Nothing else disturbs it.

See also