Hidden lines in Drawings 1

[mncad]

Using SW2004 is it possible to only show a percentage of the hidden lines in a drawing? A few hidden lines would help clarify the drawing but the thousands of hidden lines that show don't help. I don't necessarily feel like "hiding" a majority of the lines with the hide edge command. Was wondering if there is any other way to do it.

mncad

 

[TheTick]

Sometimes, when there are one or two key features that need to be revealed with hidden lines in a drawing view, I use sketch lines.

Make a layer that uses hidden line font. with hidden lines visible in the view, select edges/silhouettes and use "Convert Entities" to make curves from the edges. Then set the view to hidden lines removed. The converted sketch entities should still remain associative with the hidden geometry.

There are two types of people in the world: the kind that believe that people can be categorized into one of two groups and the kind that don't.

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[J-C]

Expand the drawing view in the feature tree to see the part and its features. Right click the feature you want to show hidden lines for and select Show/Hide "Show Hidden Edges".

This will show hiddens lines for only that feature

Jason Capriotti
ThyssenKrupp Elevator

 

[MElam]

Jason is right, this will do what you need. There are a couple of things to keep in mind:

1. Make sure the view is set to "hidden lines removed" first. Then use Jason's method.

2. You can select either entire parts or indivual features whose hidden lines you would like to show.

If you go to the view's properties, there is a tab called "Show Hidden Edges". This will give you a list of everything which has been selected to be shown. Deleting items out of this list will set their hidden lines back to removed, and can be done en-mass instead of hunting through the feature manager.

 

[mncad]

I had already done the "show hidden edges" of only the main part in the assembly but there are still too many hidden lines showing thats why I would like to only "turn on" a percentage of them.

mncad

 

[MElam]

That's why you have the ability to select features instead of entire parts.

If the software allowed you to turn on a percentage of hidden lines, say %15, how would it know which lines need to be included and which ones do not?

 

[mike57]

One other thing I do with unwanted lines is to RMB while the line is selected (the cursor changes to a line) and click on "hide edge". Certain video cards can affect the ability to chose a line, zoom in or out a little seems to work. While this can be a little tedious it has worked for me not only on hidden lines but threads also.

 

[MElam]

One of the problems you can run into with the right-click, hide edge method is when you have multiple hidden edges on top of one another (think of a side view of a linear pattern of holes). Right-click only gives you the option to toggle between hide and show of the first edge in the stack. You can still see the other edges behind it. Trying to right-click one of them only gives you the option to show the first one.

 

[pdybeck]

MElam,

I think you may be able to get around this by putting the view in wireframe mode and then trying to hide or unhide. I have come across this before, and have been able to hide or show what I need by switching to wireframe view, hiding/un-hiding, and then switching back.

 

[JNR]

In answer to your original question. No. Logically, how would the software know which one you wanted and which you did not? That's why all these methods require some level of manual selection.

John Richards Sr. Mech. Engr.
Rockwell Collins Flight Dynamics

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