Hidden Lines - Beating a dead horse.

[powder1742]

I'm trying to figure out a way not to show the hidden lines that are part of an assembly that is hidden.  This is kind of hard to describe.  Let me say it this way.  I have an assembly that is hidden.  I just want the outline of the assembly to show up as hidden, not every single part of the assembly.  This make any sense?  Can it be done?

Thanks,

Adrian

[Cadmanto]

Are you talking about in an assembly model or a drawing?

I ask because ina drawing you can RC on the line and change the properties of the line to be hidden independantly of the other lines.

[powder1742]

My bad, I should have mentioned I'm doing an IDW.  Also, I'm not looking to right click on each line and select visiblitlity.  That could take weeks!

[Cadmanto]

Then what I suggested will work.

[powder1742]

Dont have the time to click on each line!  lol.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi  powder1742,

Here is what I typically do for this kind of thing. You might end up with a variation of this, but it should get you pointed in the right direction.

First place the drawing view without hidden lines.

Then expand the view node in the browser and locate the component you want to turn on the hidden lines for. In this example it's a subassembly:

This will warn you that you're creating a state of hidden line overrides in the view, click Yes.

The result will be hidden lines per the component (if it's a subassembly, then you get hidden lines for all of the parts contained within)

Next you can expand the model tree under the drawing view even further and toggle hidden lines within the subassembly off on a part by part basis:

 

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[dick_upton]

What you are looking for cannot, in the sense you are suggesting, be done by Inventor. There is no current selection such as "Outline only", or "Boundary only" for components or parts. You have two choices for fine-tuning display of hidden lines:

1) selecting hidden lines and turning off their visibility.

       - A trick for this is to turn off all layers but hidden, then you can window big fat blocks of nasty congested hidden lines. This is a fast and inprecise way of clearing up a view. I use it when the overabundance of hidden lines confuses the eye or creates a black smudge.

2) selecting part selection mode, and rmb > hidden > off, as suggested by others.

A combination of these two techniques may gain your views better clarity, but there is no feature as I understand you are requesting. Most engineers I've had the "fortune" of working with are certainly more than lazy enough to be willing to let their downstream customers suffer with the clutter that Inventor outputs, and Autodesk I am sure has never had to build a machine with the garbage views that their flagship product makes by default. You have two choices:

1) Let those that use your drawings suffer.

2) Take some time and clean up the views with the few imprecise blunt force broad stroke tools that currently exist.

I have to say I agree with your thought process, but I'm not sure Autodesk does, nor ever will, nor will ever do anything about it. We are just a few lonely voices in a vast dessert, crying out while the shakers and movers are worried more about do-dads that attract new users, and about market share. Feature improvements and ease of use are the red-headed stepchild of this industry. But with all its warts, beats 2D.

I hope this helps.

[powder1742]

Curtis,

Thanks for the well written explaination.  Unfortuantely, That situation is a little different than what I'm looking for.  Here is the model I'm dealing with.  Its a hoisting system inside a building. 

I need to show an elevation view of the side of the building.  I would like for the view to show the hoist as hidden lines, but not show the inside parts of the hoist as well:

Something like the pic below, but with the section not cut through the house, and showing the hoist as hidden lines:

Like I said, I want a view of the side of the house to show where my door is, but not the millions of hidden lines of the parts inside the hoist drum, as shown below:

And, while I was typing this post, one of our Top drafters here came in and showed me how to do it.  Had to use an overlay function.

When you overlay, you get this:

Bam! Exactly what I was going for.  Thanks for the suggestions guys.  I think I just wasn't explaining myself clearly enough.

Have a good weekend!

[sheerdink]

Congrats on outwitting the Autodesk machine.

[karthur1]

Just and FWIW, when you are selecting the lines to turn the visibility off, you can select by a window or a crossing window.  You dont have to pick each line.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi  powder1742,

Kudo's to your co-worker!

There is a quick list of steps to create overlay views for this sort of thing at this link, in case if helps someone who finds this thread in the future:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Inventor/different-BOM-reference-structure-in-same-IAM-possib...

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[Inv_kaos]

In the browser you also have the option to Select As Edges, so you don't need to select the lines one at a time, you can select them by part or assembly in one go.