topic Re: Appearance on a surface body: transparency in Inventor Forum

Appearance on a surface body: transparency

imajar — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 23:24:46 GMT

Hi Everybody,

I am trying to apply a transparent custom appearance to a surface body without any success. I create a new custom generic appearance and apply it to both a surface body and solid body. The solid body inherits all settings correctly, but the surface does not inherit the transparency.

I am aware of the translucent option for surfaces but the opacity of this pre-set translucency is too opaque: I wish to control the transparency of a surface.

Thanks in advance. (Inventor 2015)

Re: Appearance on a surface body: transparency

-niels- — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 08:19:07 GMT

Gave this a quick try and i couldn't control the transparency either, but it does raise the question:
Why do you need to control the color of a surface?

In my opinion surfaces are used to construct solid geometry and are "temporary" or "reference" features.

If you need to control the transparency of a thin object, then you could make it a thin solid, giving it a small thickness with the thicken/offset command.

Can you give a bit more detail on why you need this?

Re: Appearance on a surface body: transparency

imajar — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 14:40:30 GMT

I am using the surface as a reference feature. But in this case, the surface feature mostly covers the geometry that I am working on making it so that I cannot see it. I wish to keep the surface visible so that I can still reference it, but turn the transparency to almost invisible so that I can easily see the actual geometry. The thicken solution worked for me (barely). But I still cannot get the transparency level as low as I would like it. (ie. 100% transparency in appearance is definitely not 100% invisible) Any tips to get the appearance to make the part nearly invisible? For example, in an assembly, when editing a part you can set the transparency of inactive parts where 0 is truly invisible and 100 is opaque. I usually like 5-10%. I would like to do the same thing using the appearance on this surface. Thanks

Re: Appearance on a surface body: transparency

imajar — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 14:58:39 GMT

I figured out one solution. . . not exactly elegant but works: I derived the surface (now thickened body) out of the part and inserted it back into the assembly. Then I hid the reference body in the original part. Then I edit the part from within the assembly and can get the desired transparency through the inactive component appearance settings. (Also I can un-check enable on the reference surface part) Any other ideas?

Re: Appearance on a surface body: transparency

-niels- — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 15:15:13 GMT

Don't have a solution for 5-10% but you can make them 100% with only the outlines visible by using a clear texture.

I'll attach it to this post, just make a new appearance with the generic image using this texture and it'll be 100% clear.

(no setting for transparency needed)

Hope this is useful for you.

Re: Appearance on a surface body: transparency

imajar — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 20:13:57 GMT

Oh thats good. I took the texture file and added a 10% transparent horizontal line. When I load that into the appearance the horizontal line maintains its transparency. The ending result is wonderful, much better than what I was originally trying to do: It makes the reference surface easy to see through while allowing me to easily view the surfaces contours and curvature. (new image file attached)

Thanks!

Re: Appearance on a surface body: transparency

johnmondro4888 — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 14:28:09 GMT

Thanks! This is exactly what I'm looking for but - missing something in the process. Hmmm, All I get is magenta...

Re: Appearance on a surface body: transparency

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Apr 2019 05:26:52 GMT

This is one thing that creates a lot frustration to me.

If you creates a assembly that consists of a lot of surfaces for a simulation model in eg. ANSYS.

And you would like a nice picture of your 3D - simulation model 😞

Not possible !!!!! Because I, like all the others in this blog can't remove the transparency from the surfaces.

This is a problem you don't have in CREO.

KR - Niels O.

Re: Appearance on a surface body: transparency

johnsonshiue — Mon, 08 Apr 2019 22:43:07 GMT

Hi! I am sorry I am confused with your comments. Are you talking about you would like to display surface bodies in opaque appearance (non transparent)? Have you right-click on the surfaces -> uncheck Translucent? Also go to Tools -> App Options -> Parts -> check "Opaque surfaces."

Many thanks!

Re: Appearance on a surface body: transparency

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 21:01:11 GMT

Not much for information out there on this. Here is my experience after hours of trying to figure this out.

I needed to create a cage. Here is what worked for me. I extruded a solid. Deleted some surfaces. Applied appearances.

Creating the mesh appearance was a little tricky as I could not find instructions. Here is what worked for me.

Created a pair of png files using paint. The image was grey and black. The cutout file was in black and white only. It had the same geometry but the wire was deleted so only white was left and the black was the area that is cutout.

If you get it wrong you get a icon (barely visible) that says you have an error.

If there exists documentation of this please let me know.

Regards,

Ben

Re: Appearance on a surface body: transparency

johnsonshiue — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 23:06:41 GMT

Hi! I think you are talking about cutout texture.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-forum/texture-with-transparence/td-p/5203143

How to turn on mask in an image.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/inventor-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/Inventor-Help/files/GUID-805F6BA4-7D57-484B-A598-8B8B3E6EDED1-htm.html

Many thanks!