Change Appearance of Machined Weldment Faces?

[jeanchile]

Hello All,

I am an Inventor weldment "noob" because I rarely have to show the actual welds on my drawings. In this scenario I am trying to document a bearing weldment in the proper steps as well as generate some presentation materials to use in a meeting next week.

I currently (thanks to JD and Yannick in another post) have this thing completely modeled using the proper weldment tools and everything is in place except for the last step. This weldment is to be machined where the two surfaces of the bearing base bolt together (and where the bearing surface is of course). I used the machining environment in my weldment to represent the "as-machined" state of the model complete with tolerances. All I need to do now is change the Appearance of the machined faces so they look machined (for the presentation). I can't seem to figure out how to do this. The machining is obviously an assembly level feature and I can't seem to select the machined faces and change their appearance. The yellow faces in this picture are the ones that need to change Appearances:

How can I accomplish this last step? Thank you for your help!

[yannick3]

Hi again

On weld node RMB select iproperty, weld bead tab, end fill appearance, chose your appearance. After that use End fill feature in machining environment and apply on the machined surfaces (Bead only)

[jeanchile]

Thank you Yannick! That got the ends of my welds to look the way I need them but I am still missing something about changing the faces of the machined steel plate material. The top of this assembly has been "faced" and I would like the plate material to look machined as well if possible.

Additional information:

1.) This part was made as a multi-body solid then written out to the individual part files.

2.) The skeleton file and individual parts are all set to "steel" and "steel" (material and appearance) with no overrides.

3.) At the assembly/weldment level the parts were selected and changed to be "Plate" to have that oxidized steel plate look.

4.) When I attempt to select individual faces in an assembly I don't have a "properties" menu item to select in order to change the faces. I can't recall if I can do this in a non-weldment assembly but I don't think I can.

5.) I haven't been able to find anything in the Wikihelp about changing "color" faces in an assembly for some reason.

Thanks for the help again!

[yannick3]

Hi
I think it's for presentation purpose you can derive your welded assembly in one part and after you will change face appearance.
The machining feature appearance cannot be change.

[JDMather]

Try this

at the part level change the part body to the machined texture.

Then override all of this by changing the face properties (this could be a lot of work if you have a lot of faces_.

Any cut to the part should display the underlying body properties.

Edit

hmmm, just tried this and it didn't work.  I know I've done something like this at the part level before.  Let me experiment some more.

[jeanchile]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Try this

at the part level change the part body to the machined texture.

Then override all of this by changing the face properties (this could be a lot of work if you have a lot of faces_.

---

Thank you JD. This sounded like a great idea but you're right, it doesn't seem to work. For the record, I've tried a few different variations of this at the different levels (skeleton geo, solid bodies, parts, assembly faces, etc.) and no dice . I'd prefer not to derive into a single part because I've already got all of my view reps set up in my assembly. Is it possible to derive this into a single part and still keep all of those somehow? I'll give that a try tomorrow. Thanks again for the help!

[tBone4379]

There's a genius Autodesk Guru where I work who has a "tech blog" for the office. He posted this not too long ago. This functionality might not have been available in previous Inventor releases - we are using Inventor 2015:

When adding machining features to an Inventor Weldment the new feature takes on the color of the component (which in most instances is ok). But what about when you need to show the machining features differently? Like when you want the part painted but the machining features to not be painted.

Inventor Machining Feature Uses Part Colour

As the Weldment assumes the Part Color for the Weldment features the only option is to override the colour of the faces of the part or its features.

Features can be quick if you can shift-click everything within the browser but can get derailed when there are work features and other features that you cannot change properties. This means picking individual features to change properties

Faces would be easy, if you could window select, but there is no window selecting within the Part Environment….. Unless you use the Appearance Browser.

Window Selecting Faces When the Appearance Browser is Active

When the Appearance Browser is active you can window select the faces in the model, meaning one window to select all the faces of the part.

Once the Faces are selected locate the colour in the Appearance Browser, right-click, and select Assign to Selection.

Now with the Faces set to the “paint” color assign the color of the part to the appearance you want the machining features to appear as…. something like Steel.

The results are now that the machining features “reveal” the part colour while the faces remain “painted”

Weldment Features Always Show the Part Colour.

I hope this solves the issue.

[SBix26]

I discovered the window selection of faces in the appearance browser by accident, and it has speeded up lots of "coloring" operations for me.  This has been available since 2013 when Appearances were introduced.  It's one of the few nice things about the appearance browser... a very un-Inventor-like user interface.

Sam B

Inventor Professional 2015 SP1 Update 2
Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit, SP1
HP EliteBook 8770w; 8 GB RAM; Core™ i7-3720QM 2.60 GHz; Quadro K4000M

[dg2405]

Here is a short ilogic code that sets a different color for the machined surfaces. You can define the color of the parts in the 3rd line (Bauteilfarbe) of the code and the machining color in the 5th line (Bearbeitungsfarbe).

'Farben definieren
Dim Bauteilfarbe As String
Bauteilfarbe = "Glatt - Elfenbein"
Dim Bearbeitungsfarbe As String
Bearbeitungsfarbe = "Dunkelgrau"

'Bauteilende vor das erste Feature setzen
Dim oAsmDoc As AssemblyDocument
oAsmDoc = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument
Dim oFirstFeature As PartFeature
oFirstFeature = oAsmDoc.ComponentDefinition.Features.Item(1)
Feature.InventorFeature(oFirstFeature.Name).SetEndOfPart(True)

'Bearbeitung aktivieren
Dim oAsmCompDef As WeldmentComponentDefinition
oAsmCompDef = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument.ComponentDefinition
Dim oOccs As ComponentOccurrences
oOccs = oAsmCompDef.Occurrences
oAsmCompDef.Machining.Edit()

'Alle Körper- u. Flächenfarben überschreiben
For Each oOcc In oOccs
oOcc.SetRenderStyle(37121)
Dim oBody As SurfaceBody
For Each oBody In oOcc.SurfaceBodies
Dim oBodyProxy As SurfaceBodyProxy
oBodyProxy = oBody
Dim oBodyNative As SurfaceBody
oBodyNative = oBodyProxy.NativeObject

Dim oDoc As Document
oDoc = oBodyNative.ComponentDefinition.Document
oBodyNative.SetRenderStyle(37123, oDoc.RenderStyles.Item(Bearbeitungsfarbe))

Dim oFace As Face
For Each oFace In oBody.Faces
Dim oFaceProxy As FaceProxy
oFaceProxy = oFace
Dim oFaceNative As Face
oFaceNative = oFaceProxy.NativeObject

oDoc = oFaceNative.Parent.ComponentDefinition.Document
oFaceNative.SetRenderStyle(37123, oDoc.RenderStyles.Item(Bauteilfarbe))

Next oFace
Next oBody
Next oOcc

'Bearbeitung deaktivieren
oAsmCompDef.Machining.ExitEdit()

ThisApplication.ActiveView.GoHome
ThisApplication.ActiveView.Fit
iLogicVb.UpdateWhenDone = True

[Milan_Nosil]

Hello,

The rule looks amazing and exactly what I need, unfortunately this rule shows me an error.

Do not you know what this might be? I need to change the appearance on the marked faces.

(Inventor 2017 - CZ language) 

In the rule I changed only the colors:

'Definování barev
Dim Bauteilfarbe As String
Bauteilfarbe = "Bílá"
Dim Bearbeitungsfarbe As String
Bearbeitungsfarbe = "Béžová"

Thank you for any advice.

Milan Nosil

[dg2405]

Please test it with no weldments in the assembly. If it work, the code have to be changed a little bit.

[Milan_Nosil]

Without the welds, iLogic works.

Thank you very much 

[Milan_Nosil]

I have a 2 small problems...

Can you please modify the iLogic code for me?

1) I can just need to paint only the holes and not the whole parts (just code without "Bauteilfarbe") - if it'll be possible.

2) There are iLogic code errors when I use only holes and no other elements. Do you know why? (The error message is the same as when I used welds)

I just need to change the appearance inside the holes faces in the weldment without coloring the entire part and without needed use another element.

If you would like to contact me outside the forum, my email is milan.nosil@adeon.cz

Thank you in advance.

[karthur1]

---

@tBone4379 wrote:

.......

Now with the Faces set to the “paint” color assign the color of the part to the appearance you want the machining features to appear as…. something like Steel.

The results are now that the machining features “reveal” the part colour while the faces remain “painted”

Weldment Features Always Show the Part Colour.

I hope this solves the issue.

---

Attached is a short "How-to" pdf on doing this.  The key is editing the color of the individual parts in the part environment.  This has some limitations, but for the most part, it is a way to do this.

Kirk

[gbrisbinUZ9NP]

This worked great!!!

[tjvz85]

Hi @karthur1 ,

Your how-to worked perfectly to get the appearance of a weldment to look like it would in reality. Painted body, no paint inside the bushing and machined surface for the bearing seat.

The bushing was done as follows:

In the part, appearance set to the machined colour, Appearance browser used to paint the painted faces and remove machined look from the inside face.

In the .iam the appearance is perfect, but in the drawing there seems to be more adjustment required. It shows up with just the part appearance overwrite, and not the machined setup. All is done in Colour View Reps.

Any advise? I have tried all the various configurations of displaying the view, but it all stays the same.

Regards

Theo

[karthur1]

Is your iam a "Weldment" or just a standard "Assembly".  It needs to be a weldment. IF it is a weldment, you can select the proper Model State for the view and see the color as you want. 

Here's how.

Double click on the view in the idw > Edit view, Model Tab.

If you pick the "Assembly" under "Weldement",  then you should see no machining, thus surfaces will be like your first image.

If you pick "Machining" you should see the different color for the machined surfaces.

Kirk

[tjvz85]

It is a weldment placed with the the Machining model state.

The main problem, it seems, is the fact that View reps aren't working for parts.

Not sure what the fix is, but looks like it has been an issue for a while now.

In addition to that, the part now displays with the appearance overrides in the part drawing, which it shouldn't.

[karthur1]

---

@tjvz85 wrote:

It is a weldment placed with the the Machining model state.

The main problem, it seems, is the fact that View reps aren't working for parts.

Not sure what the fix is, but looks like it has been an issue for a while now.

In addition to that, the part now displays with the appearance overrides in the part drawing, which it shouldn't.

---

Can you post an example of the "View Rep not working"?  I use VR all the time.  Sometimes it gets tangled up, but it is usually corrected by selecing the Master, then switch back to the one I want.

Kirk

[tjvz85]

Hi @karthur1 

Part in Master VR before appearance override.

Setting part to "Machined" colour to "Colour" VR.

Painting faces with Weldment colour.

After adjusting the "Colour"  VR, it looks like this in the model and drawing, in both Colour and Master VR.

Parts used in a machined weldment

Model appearing as required, in "Colour" VR.

But not in drawing.

Hope this shines some light on what might be wrong. Part appearance override remains when switching to Master.