topic Re: Demoting Sub-Assemblies Without Changing Part Visibility Settings in Inventor Forum

Demoting Sub-Assemblies Without Changing Part Visibility Settings

8013068 — Tue, 17 Sep 2019 20:21:58 GMT

I have a large assembly made up of some sub-assemblies. These sub-assemblies have the visibility of several components, sketches, and planes turned off. If I demote any of these sub-assemblies into a new sub-assembly by right clicking them in the Model Browser of the top-level assembly, and going to Component>Demote, everything with visibility turned off becomes visible again.

Here's an example illustrating the problem...

DEMO PART:2 in each DEMO SUB ASSEMBLY has its visibility turned off:
Assembly with visibility of sub-assembly parts turned off

I demote both DEMO SUB ASSEMBLIES into a new sub-assembly:

Demoting the sub-assemblies to a new assembly

DEMO PART:2 is visible in the result:

The result, with visibility of all parts turned back on

So, is there a way to demote sub-assemblies without changing their part visibility settings?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Re: Demoting Sub-Assemblies Without Changing Part Visibility Settings

johnsonshiue — Tue, 17 Sep 2019 23:42:09 GMT

Hi! Is it possible you may have a locked design view? Expand the Representation folder -> Design View. What is the active Design View?

Many thanks!

Re: Demoting Sub-Assemblies Without Changing Part Visibility Settings

blandb — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 13:00:40 GMT

Are you just turning off the visibility of the part in the sub-assy?. If so, I believe any changes to the sub-will cause the part to become visible again. For instance, I think if you turn off the visibility of "Demo Sub ASSY:1" and turn visibility back on, the part visibility will also cycle on.

Same with Frame generator, if you use an extruded cube to make a frame and extrude it, then place that skeleton into the assy, if you just turn the part visibility off after making the frame, when you use that frame in an upper level assy, turn off the visibility of the frame for whatever reason and turn in back on, then the skeleton box will be visible again.

Re: Demoting Sub-Assemblies Without Changing Part Visibility Settings

8013068 — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 13:43:03 GMT

Here's the part representation:
Part Representation

And here's the sub-assembly representation:

Sub-Assembly Representation

Re: Demoting Sub-Assemblies Without Changing Part Visibility Settings

8013068 — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 13:51:43 GMT

And yes, I'm turning off the visibility of the part in the sub-assy, so that would make sense. But is there a better way to do it so that they don't become visible again with any changes to the sub? This is a large assembly, so ideally I don't want to re-set the visibility for everything from the top level assembly. Maybe I could use iLogic when I combine the sub-assemblies somehow to get and set visibility?

Re: Demoting Sub-Assemblies Without Changing Part Visibility Settings

johnsonshiue — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 22:19:06 GMT

Hi! I believe this is about Design View Rep confusing behavior. Here is the thing. When you edit the subassembly in place, and you can the the component visibility there, the component will only be invisible in the top-level assembly active Design View Rep. In order to hide the components within the subassembly, you need to open the subassembly in its own window and then make the components invisible.

Does it work better now?

Many thanks!

Re: Demoting Sub-Assemblies Without Changing Part Visibility Settings

8013068 — Thu, 19 Sep 2019 13:58:16 GMT

I'm not sure I understand. I made those parts invisible when I initially made the sub assemblies, not by editing them in place.

Re: Demoting Sub-Assemblies Without Changing Part Visibility Settings

johnsonshiue — Thu, 19 Sep 2019 23:25:56 GMT

Hi! Do you mind sharing the files here? There should be a logical reason to explain the behavior. It is easier to do that with your files.

Many thanks!

Re: Demoting Sub-Assemblies Without Changing Part Visibility Settings

8013068 — Fri, 11 Oct 2019 21:17:43 GMT

The problem did have to do with the Design View Representations. It turned out that the assembly template I used to demote the sub-assemblies had Design View Representation set to "Default." For some reason, this was causing the Design View Representation of each sub-assembly to switch from "Default" to "Master" when they were demoted into that template, which caused my visibility change. That seems counter intuitive to me, but I don't know much about Design View Representations.

Anyway, I created a new assembly template with the Design View Representation set to "Master", and if I demoted the sub-assemblies into this template, it fixed the problem. I also found that I could just use the old template and set the Design View Representation of each sub-assembly back to "Default" manually if I wanted.

For anyone who doesn't know, you can set the Design View Representation by right clicking on the "Representations" folder in the Model Browser and clicking on "Representation..."

Thanks for the help