Imported Parts Appearance Problem

[RobJV]

I import a part into Inventor.  It is made up of surfaces. I go through the ridiculous steps of turning off translucency on every part.  (Not to mention the issue of an appearance over ride mentioned in another post.)  Now I have a nice ugly yellow "solid".  (not really a solid)  I then want to simply select them all within the assembly environment and change the material.  I do that and they all still stay yellow.  I have dealt with this for the last few releases so I then select them all and apply an appearance over ride.  They stay yellow in the graphic window but when you then look at the drawing, the part magically has the appearance over ride applied.

I have tried rebuild-all and opened/closed Inventor with the same results.

My next step is always a bunch of trial and error of individually opening parts, clicking on the clear all over rides within the feature properties dialog box, and opening and closing the assembly multiple times, clicking on default, master etc. until something works.  

The assembly should have the same colouras as the drawing.

There has to be a better way.

Inventor 2014

[dalibu]

I hit this problem a lot. This is my latest technique (attached), using clear all from the appearances top menu.

[WHolzwarth]

Hmm. I think, the reason for the yellow appearance is not having a real solid as part, but only a composite or surfaces. The first step would be stitching them, either in modeling or construction environment.

Best way is attaching the file here.

Walter

[RobJV]

I have also used that clear all but it would then clear my over ride that I am trying to see. 🙂

[RobJV]

Yes - I do understand that they are surfaces - that is not my point. My problem is the idw shows different colours than the ipt. It would also be nice for the default for surfaces to not be translucent (option) and also for them to appear correctly in the ipt when working with appearances. Thanks though.

[dalibu]

I think I understand it a bit better. If the yellow items are surfaces, and perhaps you want to keep them around, I would create a new view. Hide the surfaces, save the part. In drawing mode, right click on the view, hit Design View and choose the name of the view you just made. They should be gone from the drawing now. Hope the attachment makes it clear.

[mercerc]

When a surface file is brought into Inventor it gives the surface the translucent yellow/orange color you’re commenting on. This is done at the file level and has a feature property of As Body. Something you don’t see in the top level assembly file.

To change a surface or composite surface from As Body to a normal appearance you need to activate the file and select the surface or composite surface and right click in the browser and select properties (not iProperties). There you will see in the bottom section the Feature Appearance As Body. You can then edit that to be just a color appearance or material appearance.

Please keep in mind that since this is a surface file any materials or appearances applied with not give a Mass properties calculation.

[RobJV]

Hi Mercerc,

Yes - I do understand all of that and apreciate your answer and screenshots.  My problem is not the understanding of that information, my problem is that information is not always correct among other issues - at least with my installs over the past few releases.

I have posted another similar problem in another post and will post back here as well if anything is solved.  (I am going to try the Inventor Reset Utility.)

I have done what you have described with varied success in the past but something is definitley wrong with either my install or Inventor in general.   I also know that it is as designed for surfaces to come in as translucent and yellow.  Why can't this be an option we can turn off?  Why do I have to go in and select every part in a large imported assembly and turn off translucency and change from yellow to something else.  

I am having some other funny things happen with appearances too and it has continued to happen for quite a while.  I will be installing 2015 on a brand new computer so I am hoping that nothing propagates.

You describe a way to change the appearance which is correct.  What about if you simply want to apply an appearance override to all surfaces in an assembly at once.  You should be able to simply select all the surfaces and select a different appearance.  Once selected they should take on that appearance.  When I do that, they all stay yellow in the iam but if I open the assembly in the IDW, they do take on the appearance over ride.  This cannot be as designed?

Rob

[dan_inv09]

Not to butt in, but I think - instead of how to deal with the surfaces - the bigger issue is that you are getting surface files.

I would try to work with you vendor/customer/subcontractor/whatever to try and get parts and assemblies in a different neutral and/or native format that you can work with as solids. (We can supposedly open Solidworks, ProEngineer, etc. native files - I haven't tried though.)

Unless the surfaces are what you really want, in which case forget I said anything.

[RobJV]

Hi Dan, No problem "butting in". I will often get vendors to resend as a solid and typically this works the best. The reason, I still post this is some vendors will not send as solids and only have one file that they send. (With the surfaces, I should still not run into these problems.)

[mercerc]

There shouldn’t be a difference between the same version of Inventor and any of the steps outlined on any machine. I would be very interested in your results after running the reset utility.

As far as the question you have on the translucent yellow.

Why can't this be an option we can turn off?  

Why do I have to go in and select every part in a large imported assembly and turn off translucency and change from yellow to something else?

What about if you simply want to apply an appearance override to all surfaces in an assembly at once.

Good points, these would make good topics for the Inventor Ideastation so fellow users can vote on it.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideastation/idb-p/v1232

Could you expand upon the last section of using an appearance override in the assembly and seeing it in an idw. I tried in a general sense to repeat this and couldn’t.

[RobJV]

Create two parts, a solid, and a surface within an assembly. From within the context of the assembly, apply an appearance over ride to both parts. The solid will look different and the surface will remain yellow. Create a new idw, insert the assembly view, use an associative default view. Both parts will show with the correct over rides. How do i see those over rides in the assembly as I believe I should?

[mercerc]

Thank you for the steps to repeat and I was able to do so.

I've logged this with our QA group as Incident # 45427. 

Once there is a course of action it will be posted under the above number to our knowledge base.

[RobJV]

Thank You. I have had many appearance issues over the last few releases and I am glad some of them are repeatable - maybe they will get fixed one day.

[chad.schmidt]

fast forward to 2022 and as far as I can tell still not fixed.

[JDMather]

@chad.schmidt 

What isn’t fixed?

Attach your file(s) here.

[chad.schmidt]

Did read the entire forum topic?  Still not able to adjust override assembly appearances of parts with surfaces.  They continue to default to yellow.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Chad,

Two possibilities. 1) The surfaces don't carry color overrides (based on the import source) and they are set to be translucent. 2) The surfaces do carry color override but they are on individual faces.

Try this. Right-click on a surface in the browser -> uncheck "Translucent." Also, right-click -> Properties -> Clear overrides.

Does it work better now?

Many thanks!