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

tyler524 February 26, 2009 at 12:08 pm

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.

Jeff Sweeney February 26, 2009 at 12:57 pm

Honey is about a nickel a pound right now. Don't look down your nose at it!

Josh M February 26, 2009 at 1:01 pm

Thanks again Tyler. This one little thing will help out immensely in the
future!

Charles Culp February 26, 2009 at 1:02 pm

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.

diverso February 26, 2009 at 1:27 pm

Josh, how about Ambient Occlusion. That's something I always turn on before I show my boss my work.

diverso February 26, 2009 at 1:31 pm

Oww, and a bit of perspective wouldn't heard either

Josh M February 26, 2009 at 1:54 pm

yep, I use both of those quite often, especially for marketing material or sending images around.

Josh M February 26, 2009 at 1:56 pm

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 February 26, 2009 at 2:42 pm

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 removed 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 February 26, 2009 at 6:31 pm

Nice tip. It is simple tips like that which come in very handy.
Thanks much.
Gary

garyhall February 26, 2009 at 6:33 pm

Snooze ya looze.

ian February 26, 2009 at 7:23 pm

“I don't want any coffee from you! You're covered in beeeeeeeeeeeee's!”

TX80 February 27, 2009 at 9:31 am

damn.

Bruce Buck February 27, 2009 at 10:39 pm

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 March 2, 2009 at 7:12 am

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 March 2, 2009 at 10:09 am

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 March 3, 2009 at 3:14 pm

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…

Scott U March 3, 2009 at 4:14 pm

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…

Scott U March 3, 2009 at 9:14 pm

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…

Michiel May 4, 2010 at 10:30 am

and I want em allways OFF… Since SW2007 I have pressed Ctrl-4 a million times (my short-cut key for “Shaded”). Is there anyone who knows where the allways-off setting is?

Josh M May 4, 2010 at 12:01 pm

Michiel, do you want your shading off? You can switch it to wireframe or hidden lines removed in the View settings. You can then save the part/assy file as template then to have shading always off.

• SolidWorks Tip Remove Tangent Edges from Shaded View, by Josh Mings

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