topic Re: Glass appearance not transparent in Inventor Forum

Glass appearance not transparent

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Sep 2016 18:41:22 GMT

Hello all...as typical it's been a while since I've posted here, just not one to live here but it's a great place to visit...LOL

Anyhow's, I've recently changed jobs and I'm now back in the "real" world as opposed to doing the reseller gig.

Thus I'm now with a manufacturer that does a lot of glass work.

As I've seen here back in 2012, there's an issue with how components that are behind glass do not show properly in drawing views (unless shaded - see below).

As it is (they are using 2014, but I'm bumping them to 2017, which still has the issue), they have to either show the view as Hidden lines removed thus you won't see what's behind the glass, or showing hidden lines and thus the components show up as dashed.

Without adding extra steps of "fudging" the lines, how can we get the glass material to represent in your standard views as it does in shaded views?

One would think this is a "gimmie", but this error has been around for some time and honestly I never even thought about it myself.

Can we get this fixed, hopefully for 2019? I'm sure it's too late for 2018 release???

Or does someone out there know of a trick I simply haven't discovered yet?

Good to be back (both here and the real world of manufacturing)

Re: Glass appearance not transparent

mdavis22569 — Wed, 21 Sep 2016 18:48:45 GMT

Yes it changed a bit ago ...

I have a custom glass now for it

but edges are painful in the iso ... even for rendering.

Re: Glass appearance not transparent

mflayler — Wed, 21 Sep 2016 18:53:03 GMT

For 2016 and up you can do the part as transparent in the drawing...does that not help as there is likely a lot of glass parts?

Re: Glass appearance not transparent

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Sep 2016 18:59:16 GMT

Mark!!!

How's it going my old partner in crime?

Transparent...that's the trick I was looking for.

That may just do the trick, thanks.

I should have just emailed you directly.

Hope all is well at the old place (I know I've only been gone for 3 weeks, but still)

Re: Glass appearance not transparent

mflayler — Wed, 21 Sep 2016 19:01:33 GMT

You left? lol, j/k

Yea you know where to get me if you need me. 🙂

Re: Glass appearance not transparent

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Sep 2016 19:23:06 GMT

Shhhhhhh....don't tell anyone, maybe I can still pull a paycheck.

Re: Glass appearance not transparent

SteveFrey — Wed, 21 Sep 2016 22:17:29 GMT

Either you're a genius or I should have asked this question years ago. I use glass in all of my drawings. Thanks.

Re: Glass appearance not transparent

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 12:40:50 GMT

I'll go with "genius"....LOL

But I'll be honest, I feel the same way. I've dealt with glass panels before and had this issue come up, just never thought to mention it here.

The fix (for 2016 and forward) is to insert the part into an assembly and then make the glass Transparent. It works, but it's still not ideal.

For one, setting the part to transparent MUST be done BEFORE you create any views. If you detail an assembly and THEN add a transparent part, you'll need to delete the views and re-detail the new views where that new component is shown. There's no "update" for the drawing for some odd reason, even though the assembly has changed.

Again, there's a work around that does work, as long as you haven't started to detail the assembly yet and you need to do such AFTER the part has been inserted into the assembly. So this transparency is active in that assembly only. If you were to reuse this part in another assembly, you'll also have to make it "transparent" there as well.

Sorry, I find this as a major flaw in the software. There's no way I can justify the time spent for my guys to have to re-detail a complete assembly drawing if and when a customer decides he wants to add another plate of glass, especially during our busy season when we are in "hair on fire" mode to meet deadlines.

Re: Glass appearance not transparent

mdavis22569 — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 12:48:56 GMT

LOL ... love the new name ..

Re: Glass appearance not transparent

mflayler — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 12:49:34 GMT

Well, if you are on 2017 you can do a Transparent part in the assembly and then that will transfer over to the drawing without the need to redetail as long as your views are associative and shaded.

Re: Glass appearance not transparent

mdavis22569 — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 12:50:55 GMT

It was just easier to create a new one for me ...for the clear glass look.

However the rendering took A LOT of time to get it somewhat ..what I wanted.

I'm all for a idea station ... make Glass work like Glass in modeling, rendering and 2d ...

Re: Glass appearance not transparent

SteveFrey — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 14:12:36 GMT

Back when I was first learning Inventor I spent so much time trying to figure out how to present glass in my drawings that I got in the habit of turning off the visibility in many of the views (no glass edges shown) because the glass is supposed to be clear anyhow. Sadly I stopped including an isometric view in many of my drawings for this reason alone. The shading and overall appearance can make my product look not so great. I just installed 2017 so I can't wait to try Mark's tip in my next drawing.

Re: Glass appearance not transparent

mdavis22569 — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 14:19:31 GMT

How's the realtime rendering look

Mike

Re: Glass appearance not transparent

mflayler — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 14:28:24 GMT

I tried with a few different "Glass" and "Clear" out of the box appearances. This one is probably the best, but if I really wanted I would probably create a custom material.

Re: Glass appearance not transparent

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 17:47:22 GMT

Mark,

Yeah, shaded views are fine, we need the default, non-shaded type views typically used in a drawing to act in the same manner and that's where the issue lies.

Right now they are on 2014 and don't have the "transparent" option yet (hoping to be on 2017 here soon...gotta get them up to speed on Vault Pro first). So they've been going into each view and changing the hidden lines to solid so they'd show properly. It's not a bad issue here during their "down season" which we are in now, but come Summer, they are so slammed here, there's little to no time to deal with issues like this when every minute matters. So we're looking at all the issues we can resolve in time for the upcoming busy season. Thus the reason they brought me in.

This is just one of those issues they need resolved to knock down the time spent. Expect to see plenty more postings from me here...;)

Re: Glass appearance not transparent

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 17:50:12 GMT

LOL....I got tagged with that nickname years ago when I was a Cad Admin and stuck to my guns on enforcing standards, figured might as well put it to use