Assembly Transparency

While the assembly transparency is nice, does anyone know how to turn
all parts off with designing in-context? This wasn't much of a problem
when I was designing small assemblies. I would just select the
parts/subassys and "Hide", but now that I'm working on an assembly
with more parts this is getting to be a real pain. I tried setting up
configurations, but really what I want is to be able todo is toggle
between showing the assembly components (Opague or Transparent) and
hiding all the assembly components when I'm editing a part. Any
feedback would be appreciated.

TIA,
SR

 

I created a macro that would allow you to preview hidden and suppressed
components in your assembly tree it helps when you just have no idea which
hidden component is which. I would be glad to send it to you if you like.

Corey

 

If you are referring to to option "Assembly transparency for in
context edit" none of these settings allow me to completing turn off
the assembly parts when in-context. All this allows me to do is
control the transparency of the parts. Even when set to 100% it still
leaves me with a wireframe display.

Did I miss something from your response?

 

Turn off "shaded with edge" and select "shaded" (View > Display) and the
wireframe will dissapear leaving only the part selected for editing showing.

Dave H

 

Have a look at "assembly envelopes" they are sort of the tool for this,
toggle between hide a show assy components.

Krister L

 

I have a set of 3 macros I use for this. The 1st and 3rd are
modifications of other macros I found, and the 2nd macro I got from
???.
-One to record the current shown/hidden status of each part.
-One to "Show Only" and selected parts.
-Lastly, one to reset the previous shown/hidden status (that was
stored in a text file), and show/hide parts/subassemblies accordingly.

Suppressed parts are ignored thru-out, and new parts are ignored in
the reset macro. I can send you them if you want.

After writing these macros, I found a Visibility Toggle macro at:
http://www.kentcontract.com/swmacros.shtml

It works pretty well is pretty intuitive. It basically records a
selection set, and works off of that. It costs $10. It is kind of
slow tho, but I'm guessing that is because it is more of a stand-alone
program rather than a macro. It has what you're looking for plus a
couple other similiar features (like toggling all shown parts to
hidden and vice-versa). Also, it is more professional looking, and
easier for macro-phobes to use, than my version.

Ken

 

Dave H,

That's is much closer to what I'm looking for except even though the
display of the components is hidden, all edge, vertices, planes, etc.
are highlighted as I brush my cursor over the view making it very
difficult to work. I appreciate your reply.

Thanks,
SR

 

It sounds like what you want is everything else to disappear and be out of
the picture. So, instead of editing the part there, just RMB and "open" the
part. This way you will be working on it by itself.

WT

 

Thanks for the macro offer Ken, but I think I'm going to try the
Visibility Toggle macro you pointed me to below. Thanks again!

Thanks to all those that replied along with Ken.
SR

 

If you leave that on you can toggle it hold shift down and you will select
like there are no transparent parts. Otherwise you select strait through
them.

Corey

 

Guys:

What are your thoughts on this macro?

How slow? What seems to be the threshold of components where it's a
pain to use?

I have a combo of free macros I'm using for this type of thing -- but
with alot of parts they are dog slow.

Wouldn't be nice if SolidWorks Corp. put incredibly useful things like
this into the software? I think it's great that SWX has a good API
that allows this sort of thing but some on these things should be
no-brainers for them to integrate into the code.

Todd