SW05 colors

Is it just me, or is assigning colors to a part screwy?

The only way I can get it to work is to make the part wire frame, select the
whole part with a bounding box, select the color, then check the color by
turning off the wireframe. If I try to select using the select body switch,
it does not change the all the color on the body, just one or several faces.

I am a beginner.

Bill

 

It works better if you do it differently, It sounds like you're assigning
face colors to every face on the part. If you select the name of the part
from the top of the Feature Manager, then use the color icon to assign
color, it will work out much better for you.

There is a hierarchy of color assignment (listed overriding to overridden):

Assembly Component
Face
Feature
Body
Part

Good luck,

matt

 

Thats what I am doing and I can't seem to make it work.

1. I right click on the part name at the top of the feature tree. Its
symbol turns from yellow to blue.

2. I click on the Edit Color icon.

3. The Color and Optics menu pops up on left side, with the name of the
part in the red selection area.

4. I click on a color in the Favorite menu, but the part does not change
color.

I guess somehow I am not selecting the part properly. If the name of the
part is in the red selection box, does that mean the whole part is selected?
It does not seem to. Even if I turn on the selction filter buttons for
"body", it still does not select the part properly, and the part does not
change color. If I do it the way I described before, and select all the
faces, either individually or with a bounding box, then the names of the
faces appear in the selection window, and I can now change color. Is there
some kind of selection preference I have to set?

Thanks in advance , happy new year.
Bill

 

Later that morning...
If I try another part, it works the way you describe. Its just weird with
that one part.

Go figure.
Bill

 

No, if you think about it, it's not really weird that it's doing it with
that one part. You have already set the face colors on the part, which
override the part colors. In order to make it work the way you want it to,
you have to remove all the face colors. You could do that kind of the way
you assigned the face colors originally (except hit the "Remove Colors"
button) or you could use a macro like the one on my website called "face
colors". It will remove all face colors in a part. There is also one for
feature colors.

http://mysite.verizon.net/mjlombard/

 

I didn't know about removing the color before making it a new one. I had
just assumed that a new color would overwrite the old color.

Thanks

 

What about face colours defined in an assembly? ...or feature, or body?

 

If you define a face, feature or body color for a part in the assembly, it
is just like assigning it in the part. But it you assign a component color
for a part in an assembly, it overrides everything.

I can't find a way to actually change the part color from the assembly
window. Strange things happen if you have multiple instances of a part
where the part has face colors and the instance has component colors, the
face color will temporarily override the component color until you stop
editing in context.

 

Matt,

Thanks, I have spent hours trying to find out how this really works in
practice. And of course if

1. Open documents read only is checked
2. Don't prompt to save read only documents is checked
3. and Search external references is checked

then setting colors in assemblies can be dangerous.

To add to our confusion we have parts that are years old in assemblies
made on our current 2004 production version of SW and there seems to be
some quirkiness associated with using old parts and configuraitons. I
just haven't had time to test all the possibilities.

 

Matt, Refering to "Assembly Component" as over-ridding; You mean at the
assembly level only? Right? Because if I've applied a color to a part
(in part mode) then assemble this part and change the color via
selecting the component in the assembly and choosing "properties", then
the color is applied at the assembly level only. The part file is not
affected.
Eddie
See you in Orlando!