Drawing Line weight

[Anonymous]

I am looking for a way to be able to have layers automatically assign to different lines based on their distance in the background. My main concern is that when a section is created items that are beyond are appearing on the same line weight and layer as the item that I am sectioning through. I am able to change the standard line weight, but this is applying to all lines regardless of the relationship to one another. The only answer that I have been able to find is I have to select each line or a group of lines and change them manually. As smart as Inventor is I am hoping that there is a way for the software to be able to do this for me. 

[Curtis_Waguespack]

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@mmorrissey wrote:

I am looking for a way to be able to have layers automatically assign to different lines based on their distance in the background.  

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Hi mmorrissey,

This sounds like a departure from standard, traditional, technical drawing and drafting techniques, so you will not find a solution to this with "out of the box" Inventor.

Can you provide more information about what and why? Maybe some screenshots?

You might be able to find a custom solution via a macro, if it's important enough to you to pursue it. If so I would start here:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Inventor-Customization/bd-p/120

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[Anonymous]

Curtis,

Thank you for the information. The main reason that I am looking to be able to do this is so that the drawing won't look so cluttered. We are ending up with many lines in the background which are appearing on the same line weight as those in the foreground. This makes the drawings hard to read at times when it is printed and distributed to our shop. I have attached a couple of pictures, one is showing a section through some trim that we are putting into a fixture. I want to see the lines to print lighter so that our shop can easily tell that it is on a different plane. The other is an elevation of the same trim, the panels that are seen are all on different planes yet all the lines appear the same. When this is printed it turns into a large black area which doesn't show much information.

Thank you for your help.

[JDMather]

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@mmorrissey wrote:

... so that the drawing won't look so cluttered. We are ending up with many lines in the background . 

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You can set the depth of the section, you can set it to the section plane if you don't want anything appearing that is behind the section plane.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi mmorrissey,

Are you familiar with View Representations? It might help to set up a view rep in the assembly of only the components you want to see in the view, and then set the drawing view to use that View Rep.

Also, if you uncheck the Associative checkbox in the Edit View dialog for the view in question, then you will be able to select components in the view and turn off the visibility.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[Anonymous]

I am still wanting to see what is in the background for reference, I am just looking for it to be able to print as different line weights so there is a differentiation between what is in the foreground and background. Even when looking at elevations I would like lines to print as different line weights so that there is a difference items at different depths. In reference to the picture of the elevation of trim that I posted previously. There isn't any depth perception within that view and when it is printed out all of the lines blend together since they are all on the same line weight.

[JDMather]

I think you will have to do this the old-fashion way - manually edit the Properties of each line you intend to change (you should be able to window or crossing window select multiple).  (but I didn't try it)

[Anonymous]

That is the way I have been doing it, I was just hoping to find a way that would be a little more efficient. A lot of times drawings are coming out to 10+ pages and having to manually update every time takes a lot of time. I was just hoping that since inventor could differentiate distance that it would be able to translate that to line weight.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi mmorrissey,

Try this:

Create a new layer called "Background" and set the linetype for this layer to your liking, the follow these instructions:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/inventor-products/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcartic...

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your help, this is another way that I have been getting the outcome that I want. The problem is that I still have to do this to each part in every view on every pages which doesn't make the time worth it. 

This is the outcome that I am hoping to achieve but by having the software be able to pick it up automatically.

[Anonymous]

I believe I have found the problem. I believe that Inventor defaults to do what I am looking for, my predecessor was the one who set up our standards and styles libraries and I believe the default was overwritten during this process. I am going to try to get back to a default and see if that will fix the problem. Thank you everyone for your input.