user work plane visibility

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Hi, I have an assembly with a lot of user work planes (many repeated in patterned parts and features). I am editing one part in place and have to create new user work planes. Every time I create a new work plane the user work plane visibility toggles on hiding the assembly and the part I am working on under a huge nest of planes. I toggle the visibility off and I can see the part again but not the plane I created. I can't easily switch on just the visibility of the new planes I am creating because they are already visible in the sub-menu. The only way I can see them is by going through all the planes in the parts and patterns switching off visibility of planes more or less one at a time. The planes were invisible in the part files but somehow they are now visible in the assembly.

There must be an easier way to do this!!!

[Dennis_Jeffrey]

Are you using Design Views and using them correctly?

Design View Representations control work feature visibility at the assembly level.

[signmeup]

That may be part of the answer, but I don't know how these work features got turned on. I think it would be easier if you could turn off visibility on work features (i.e. uncheck visibility on each work feature) for a part or assembly in one go, rather than having to go through and find each work feature in the browser. If you do a high-level visibility turn off then it will turn back on when you create a new work feature.

[Dennis_Jeffrey · Accepted solution]

Using these tools allow turning all on/off at the same time at the assembly level. Then create a new Design View Representation and SAVE it.

Inventor Help: Design View representations, about

[signmeup]

This doesn't seem to work if the LoD has lost associativity because the visibility doesn't then pull through to the higher assembly and you can't create a new LoD editing the sub-assy in place. Also there doesn't seem to be a way to reestablish associativity for LoD representations.

[Dennis_Jeffrey]

We are talking about Design Views. LOD's do not control visibility of work features. How do your LOD's lose associativity?

What version and Service pack are you on?

[signmeup]

Maybe it's the design view that has lost associativity. I'll have another go at it sometime.

2011 SP1

Thanks.

[signmeup]

I tried turning off workfeatures, creating a new design view and saving it. This doesn't have the same effect as turning off each workfeature in the browser though. Create a new workfeature and that class of feature becomes visible again. So back to my original point, which is that there should be some global way to hide workfeatures in an assembly (and part) while keeping the general visibility on.

[signmeup]

This is a light bulb moment. Now I can use design view reps to control work features etc. and LoD to control loading of parts/subassys. The curious thing is that in sub-assemblies the representation tree contains the design views but in sub-sub-assys it only contains the LoDs and you have to go into a RMB menu to get to design views.

[signmeup]

There is a difference in behaviour in patterned component visibility depending on whether you edit in place to turn off user work features or whether you open it in a separate window. The latter approach controls all instances within the pattern, the former only the one you edit. This could be quite a time saver.

[signmeup]

Since DevinCurrie just gave me a kudos for my original post, I thought I would add a reply saying that nowadays I typically turn off user workfeature and sketch visibility in the part file, open as a part file not edited in place in an assembly, with the master view selected, then this controls the visibility in assemblies. Playing around with the visibility of part features in the assembly is a waste of time.

[moto748]

This has been a bugbear of mine for a long time, and I share the original poster's frustration. Globally turning off visibility at assembly level is a bodge, which has severe limitations anyway, as has been discussed.

I wonder, though, how the workflow suggested in post #11 would work with assemblies that are 'locked' in the Vault?

More generally, I do feel that, certainly in the models I work on, the vast majority of user-created workplanes are unnecessary, as they are sat on top of existing axis work planes. Seems to me that it should be regarded as good practice to normally turn all work plane visibility off manually before saving, except in rare and special circumstances. And the same, in spades, goes for unconsumed sketches!

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! This is a legacy behavior. It has something to do with Design View Representation. It is a design choice made early on. I personally do not think allowing DVR to control user work geometry visibility is a good idea. User work geometry and sketch are construction geometry. Certainly, they define datum planes critical to documentation. However, they have nothing to do with how a model would look. DVR should only control how overall model looks in color, lighting, texture, and so on. It should not get in the way to managing construction geometry.

With that said, we do have customer using DVR managing work geometry successfully. They create a DVR call Work Geometry off and another one Sketch off or something like that in the templates. In those DVRs, the work geometry and sketch object visibility are turn off.

Many thanks!