Changing appearance at part level does not change at assembly level...

[Anonymous]

Unless I set the Appearance at the part level before I do any extrusions, I can't get my parts to show up in assemblies as they are at the part level without changing them at the assembly level also. Further, even when I do get them to show up properly in the first assembly, if I place that sub assembly in a master assembly, all of the parts get reset to whatever the appearance of the subassembly is set as in the master assembly. This gets really annoying 4 or 5 sub-assemblies deep, going through and individually changing all the parts every time. I'm using IV 14. Anyone know if there's a setting I can change so that appearances are... global, so to speak?

[blair]

You have two aspects, first is the color of the part at the part level. When you place a part in a IAM file, you can change the color of the parts at the Assembly Level. This only affects this Assembly and not the Part unless you enter the Part and edit at the part level. This allows you to have IAM files with different color while still using the same parts.

This is as designed, much the same as creating holes through parts with Assembly Features. These changes only reside at the IAM level and not back into the IPT part level.

There are no settings within Inventor to push color changes from the IAM level back down to the IPT level. This can be done with "Features" but no with color.

You could set up Templates for each Material and Color Type which would help when you are starting a new IPT. Simply select the appropriate Template to start your new part.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Blair. I guess what I'm asking is if there's a way to set my part's color, and force it to be that color for every assembly it is in. Including if the assembly it is in is placed into another larger assembly. It seems to be that if I set the color before the initial save or before I first place it in an assembly it works... but not always.

[blair · Accepted solution]

Open the part, change the Appearance, save and close the part. Anytime you then use this part it will have the color/appearance that you have assigned to it.

It sounds like you are trying to change the appearance of the item while you are in the Assembly IAM file. You need to be careful, if you have any Over-Rides of Appearance in IAM Assembly files, you may need to clear any Appearance Overrides for the part base color to show up.

You have two parts to how a part looks. First is the Material and the second is the Appearance. Many mistake the Material for how an IPT looks. If you select "Steel" for your part, it will appear "Grey". The Material primarily controls the Physical Attributes of the part such as it's Mass and other physical attributes that are required for FEA. Appearance is just that, think of it as Paint. A IPT that has "Steel" as it material can have a "Paint" coat or Chrome coating. This won't affect it's Mass or how it reacts to Loads in FEA analysis.

[Anonymous]

The issue was that I didn't understand what it was asking when I got the pop up that asks if you'd like to remove associativity every time I would change visibility or appearance of a part. Using "Modify Design View Rep." fixed my issue. Thanks Blair.

[ropicazo]

I am running into a related issue. I have a part that was originally blue (left), if I open it and change the color at part level I can change it to red (right). However, it doesn't change at the assembly level. Only if I place this component again it updates the color, as in the picture below.

I have already overridden all appearance at assembly level with no luck. Do you have any advice? Thank you in advance!

[kacper.suchomski]

Indeed, I'm having trouble updating too. @James_Willo , can you take a look at this?

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! I am not able to reproduce the behavior. Please make sure all critical Windows updates are installed and the graphics driver is updated.

Many thanks!

[James_Willo]

I cannot reproduce this. Did you try clicking this button at the top and removing all overrides?

Or right click the design view and do 'remove appearance overrides.'

[ropicazo]

Thank you for the replies. I am more confused than ever because I tried with a new part and assembly, and it works! However, I cannot find what the issue is in my normal assembly. I have updated the driver of the graphics card and remove the overrides as suggested. I did a little video showing the problem, maybe you can find an obvious mistake in it?

In the video one can see that the color of the part is what was originally chosen (~cyan), and I can't seem to change it. I turn the part to red and it's not updated.

Thank you in advance.