Assembly: Is there a way to quickly force-enable visibility of all work features or origin planes/axes?

[jeffg28CLY]

v2022.4

When doing an assembly, I often use origin planes or workplanes for constraining parts.

I also by default have individual workplane visibility turned off in each component to reduce visual clutter.

But that makes it sluggish to make assemblies: Expand the part in the feature tree, expand the Origin folder, and click the plane I want.

And clicking the checkboxes in View --> Object Visibility doesn't seem to affect work-features that have their visibility turned off at the part level. The corresponding keyboard shortcuts, such as Ctrl-. or Alt-], just toggle those same checkmarks, therefore they also do nothing.

Creo had an icon to click to make all workplanes or axes or points visible, regardless of how they were set in each part file.

Is there something like that in Inventor? Something to temporarily force all work-features to be visible, and then put them back to what they were.

[pcrawley]

Through the UI, you've covered all the options and not found one that suits, so I don't have any other suggestions sorry.

However, iLogic is perfect for this sort of function because you can customise which planes are turned on/off (my preference is for the origin XY plane turned on.)  If you repost over on the customisation forum, you'll probably find someone has already written what you're looking for.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ilogic-and-vb-net-forum/bd-p/120 

[jeffg28CLY]

Yeah I kind of had a feeling it would lead back to iLogic. (I was hoping it was just some obscure keyboard shortcut.)

One of these years I need to somehow find some time to learn how to program things in iLogic.

[BDCollett]

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@jeffg28CLY wrote:

Yeah I kind of had a feeling it would lead back to iLogic. (I was hoping it was just some obscure keyboard shortcut.)

One of these years I need to somehow find some time to learn how to program things in iLogic.

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The great thing is a lot of the time you don't need to know completely.

Here are a couple of links with iLogic that does what you need:

Solved: ON/Off Origin planes - Autodesk Community - Inventor

Solved: iLogic rule show/hide planes - Detect Mouse Button Event - Autodesk Community - Inventor

[Frederick_Law]

Use View Rep.

Add another View Rep.

Keep everything hidden in Master.

Do whatever you want in another View Rep.

[BDCollett]

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@Frederick_Law wrote:

Use View Rep.

Add another View Rep.

Keep everything hidden in Master.

Do whatever you want in another View Rep.

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That works well for new work features. It doesn't seem to work for the Orgin work features though.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! Yes, origin plane visibility isn't controlled by Design View Rep. However, the options in View -> Object Visibility are indeed saved in a Design View Rep. You may control origin plane visibility using Object Visibility (saved to Design View Rep).

Many thanks!

[jeffg28CLY]

Thank you, though the workflow for changing/updating View States/View Reps isn't really what I'm after. (this might end up belonging in the Ideas section) As new Work Planes are created, they would individually need to be added to the reps, wouldn't they?

I'm after something fast and temporary that would work on any model - for example, when a new file is started, the Origin work features are all hidden, but the instant you click Sketch, it automatically makes the origin planes and axes visible.

I'm ideally after a keyboard shortcut that would toggle visibility of all workplanes in a part.

I need to spend some time on some of the iLogic posts that @BDCollett linked to. I tried two of the iLogic scripts there, but the first gave a pointer error and wouldn't run, and the second one gave multiple compile errors, so I need to try to figure out what's going on with that, and try the other options out.

Edit: I think one of them, here, might be on the right track. Need to see if I can do a keybind to trigger an iLogic rule.

[gregory_nickol]

When you get a rule that works, you can likely set up a very quick VBA macro that effectively just says "run this iLogic rule", which could then be placed on your ribbon and/or be set to a keybind when you go into the customize menus and filter to the Macros category.

Alternatively if running Inventor 2023, you can add the rule directly to your ribbon (and maybe keybind it directly? Not sure if that functionality was added with 2023 or not, haven't tested yet)

[kacper.suchomski]

Depends what you want to get.

You have various solutions at your disposal:

1. Representations View.

2. In 2023 version you can click Alt+V to control visibility. All selection shortcuts work too (ctrl, shift).

3. Several people above have told you about iLogic rules.

4. There are many extensions (free and paid) that allow you to quickly manage the visibility of construction elements:

https://apps.autodesk.com/INVNTOR/pl/Detail/Index?id=1921982582196909233&appLang=en&os=Win64

https://apps.autodesk.com/INVNTOR/pl/Detail/Index?id=7928398839252798271&appLang=en&os=Win64

https://apps.autodesk.com/INVNTOR/pl/Detail/Index?id=7592760438414001617&appLang=en&os=Win64

https://apps.autodesk.com/INVNTOR/pl/Detail/Index?id=3847454484037417587&appLang=en&os=Win64

You can choose the tools and methods that are optimal for your workflow.