One of These Things Is Not Like the Other… SolidWorks Visual Properties

• tyler524
  That is the great thing about the Solidworks community. There are alot of people who help others and share their knowledge. It seems like you can always find the answer to your question in a blog or from someone else.
• Josh M
  Thanks again Tyler. This one little thing will help out immensely in the
  future!
• diverso
  Josh, how about Ambient Occlusion. That's something I always turn on before I show my boss my work.
• diverso
  Oww, and a bit of perspective wouldn't heard either
• Josh M
  yep, I use both of those quite often, especially for marketing material or sending images around.
• Jeff Sweeney
  Honey is about a nickel a pound right now. Don't look down your nose at it!
• Charles Culp
  After playing with the different options the last couple years, I always keep mine phantom. This is more important for surface models, where you want to control the tangency between faces. This way you can visually see the difference between the two.
  
  Then, if I want a nice visualization with no lines, I turn off all edges with Shaded Model with Hidden Edges.
• Josh M
  Great point Charles. Man, it feels good to learn something and learn how people use it for different applications. Marking this day on my calendar :)
• Brian
  Interesting... Like Charles, I usually just switch the display state between Shaded and Shaded With Edges. I prefer having them shown when working in the model.
  
  It's odd that the View/Display option doesn't remove the edges when RealView is off (or that's how it's working here).
  
  Coinkydinkily, I am working on a post talking about tangent edges in drawings (at least I WAS! ;P)
  
  I showed the options to a guy here at work the other day and his jaw literally dropped!
• garyhall
  Snooze ya looze. :-)
• garyhall
  Nice tip. It is simple tips like that which come in very handy.
  Thanks much.
  Gary
• ian
  "I don't want any coffee from you! You're covered in beeeeeeeeeeeee's!"
• TX80
  damn.
• Bruce Buck
  Even more lame, the fact that that option's been available since 2005 or 2006...
  Don't worry, I just found out about "Find References" and "Update Standard Views" about a month ago.
  
  Definitely lots of slap your forehead moments when you talk to other SW users.
• Josh M
  yes... thanks for pointing that out Bruce :) - It would be interesting to gather all those 'obvious' features together. I'm thinking another post is in order.
• Tom
  Cut & Paste this macro and assign it to a key like Ctrl-T or something.
  
  Dim swApp As SldWorks.SldWorks
  Dim Part As ModelDoc2
  Dim SelMgr As SelectionMgr
  Dim boolstatus As Boolean
  Dim longstatus As Long, longwarnings As Long
  Dim swStatus As SldWorks.Frame
  
  Sub main()
  
  Set swApp = GetObject("", "SldWorks.Application")
  Set swmodel = swApp.ActiveDoc
  Set swStatus = swApp.Frame
  Set Part = swApp.ActiveDoc
  longstatus = swApp.GetUserPreferenceIntegerValue(swEdgesTangentEdgeDisplay)
  Select Case longstatus
  Case swEdgesTangentEdgeDisplayVisible
  swApp.SetUserPreferenceIntegerValue swEdgesTangentEdgeDisplay, swEdgesTangentEdgeDisplayRemoved
  swStatus.SetStatusBarText " Tangent Edge Display = REMOVED"
  Case swEdgesTangentEdgeDisplayRemoved
  swApp.SetUserPreferenceIntegerValue swEdgesTangentEdgeDisplay, swEdgesTangentEdgeDisplayPhantom
  swStatus.SetStatusBarText " Tangent Edge Display = PHANTOM"
  Part.GraphicsRedraw2
  Case swEdgesTangentEdgeDisplayPhantom
  swApp.SetUserPreferenceIntegerValue swEdgesTangentEdgeDisplay, swEdgesTangentEdgeDisplayVisible
  swStatus.SetStatusBarText " Tangent Edge Display = VISIBLE"
  End Select
  Part.GraphicsRedraw2
  End Sub
• Scott U
  Thanks for the reminder about that feature. I had forgotten about it, I think partially because when I first discovered it, the model I was working on lost some visual information in that mode.
  
  I think it would be great if in addition to the current options (or instead of phantom, that's just ugly) there was an option to make tangent lines either thinner or largely transparent. Though they aren't pretty, those lines do convey information that might otherwise be lost or muddled without them, especially in a static image that you did not invest much time into getting right. I once exported saved images of a shaded model with and without lines, then in Photoshop made the lines layer 40% or so and it looked good, but I don't think I've done that again, simply because that's too much hassle for a non-render (might as well open up PhotoView 360!)
  
  And if that did happen, I'd like the option to put internal edges into that category. Maybe even create some basic weighting rules (3 levels, like here: http://vimeo.com/1508305 ). I suppose my ID background has been exposed...

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