Transparent Plane with Decal in Inventor?

[Anonymous]

Hello.

I'm wanting to make a plane that isn't the regular grey, but is transparent. I thought I could do this with the material, but when I do, it changes the transparency of the whole model and not just one area.

Then, I want to apply a gradient color to transparency that I've made in Photoshop as a decal, but decals don't seem to honor transparency. Any ideas?

[Anonymous]

Hello.

I'm wanting to make a plane that isn't the regular grey, but is transparent. I thought I could do this with the material, but when I do, it changes the transparency of the whole model and not just one area.

Then, I want to apply a gradient color to transparency that I've made in Photoshop as a decal, but decals don't seem to honor transparency. Any ideas?

[SBix26]

You don't say what version of Inventor you're using, but I'll assume a recent version.  

When you say you want to make a "plane" transparent, I'm guessing that you don't mean a workplane, but one face of a part model.  You can do that by selecting that face and then choosing an Appearance from the drop-down list just above the graphics area (or right click on the selected face and choose Properties).  Note that Appearance and Material are two very different concepts: 

• Material is the physical properties of a solid: density, strength, coefficient of thermal expansion, etc.  
• Appearance is purely visual: what a surface looks like.  

Material can only be applied to an entire part; Appearance can be applied to a part, a body, a feature, a face.  For convenience, Materials have an associated Appearance, but as you've discovered, this applies to the whole part, except the body/feature/face overrides.

Sam B

Inventor Professional 2015 SP2
Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit, SP1
HP EliteBook 8770w; 8 GB RAM; Core™ i7-3720QM 2.60 GHz; Quadro K4000M

[SBix26]

You don't say what version of Inventor you're using, but I'll assume a recent version.  

When you say you want to make a "plane" transparent, I'm guessing that you don't mean a workplane, but one face of a part model.  You can do that by selecting that face and then choosing an Appearance from the drop-down list just above the graphics area (or right click on the selected face and choose Properties).  Note that Appearance and Material are two very different concepts: 

• Material is the physical properties of a solid: density, strength, coefficient of thermal expansion, etc.  
• Appearance is purely visual: what a surface looks like.  

Material can only be applied to an entire part; Appearance can be applied to a part, a body, a feature, a face.  For convenience, Materials have an associated Appearance, but as you've discovered, this applies to the whole part, except the body/feature/face overrides.

Sam B

Inventor Professional 2015 SP2
Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit, SP1
HP EliteBook 8770w; 8 GB RAM; Core™ i7-3720QM 2.60 GHz; Quadro K4000M

[Anonymous]

Great, thanks!

How do I deal with the gradient decal not being transparent, though?

[Anonymous]

Great, thanks!

How do I deal with the gradient decal not being transparent, though?

[SBix26]

Sorry, I haven't worked with decals enough to help with that part of it.

I should also have mentioned in my previous post that changing the appearance of a face to something transparent will not result in actual transparency if the body or part appearance is opaque (and vice versa).  To achieve transparency of a face on an otherwise opaque part, such as a window, you will need to create the window as a separate solid body.  Different bodies in the same part file can have different transparencies, but not within the same body.

Sam B

Inventor Professional 2015 SP2
Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit, SP1
HP EliteBook 8770w; 8 GB RAM; Core™ i7-3720QM 2.60 GHz; Quadro K4000M

[SBix26]

Sorry, I haven't worked with decals enough to help with that part of it.

I should also have mentioned in my previous post that changing the appearance of a face to something transparent will not result in actual transparency if the body or part appearance is opaque (and vice versa).  To achieve transparency of a face on an otherwise opaque part, such as a window, you will need to create the window as a separate solid body.  Different bodies in the same part file can have different transparencies, but not within the same body.

Sam B

Inventor Professional 2015 SP2
Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit, SP1
HP EliteBook 8770w; 8 GB RAM; Core™ i7-3720QM 2.60 GHz; Quadro K4000M