Work Part: Emphasize by making all other parts transparent?

[potrero]

NX 6.0.3

By default, NX "emphasizes" the work part if one begins working on a subcomponent of an assembly. However, the other parts are still rendered as solids, so sometimes, if your Work Part is buried inside of a complex assembly, it can be hidden from view.

Is there a way to configure NX so that the "emphasis" consists of making all the other parts Transparent, in addition to dull white or whatever the default setting is? This would allow you to clearly see all aspects of the Work Part.

Thanks!

 

[JohnRBaker]

Not in NX 6,0, but starting with NX 7.0 we've added an additional display mode known as 'See-Thru' mode, which actually comes in a couple of flavors and depending on what you're doing, gives some interesting results.

Shown below is how two of those 'flavors' would show a 'buried' Component when working in-context and the rest of the Assembly remains in 'see-thru' mode. The top image is using what is known as a 'See-Thru Shell', where the less important geometry, in this case the Components in the non-Work Part, are rendered as a translucent 'shell'.

The lower image shows the same in-context session only using what is known as 'See-Thru Layers', where the less important geometry, again those Components in the non-Work Part, are rendered as translucent 'layers'.

(For those of you who can't see the image above, I've included it below)

Note that this See-Thru mode is like any other display mode in that it has no effect on the operations which you're performing and you can work in this mode just like it were Shaded or Wireframe, it's just an additional display option which we've given you. This includes when creating models, adding Components to an Assembly or even playing back an Assembly Sequence which can be very useful when dealing with a complex Assembly with a lot on internal moving parts, as would be the case with this radial engine that I used in my example here.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[potrero]

John,
That looks really cool. And useful. Too bad it's not in NX6, have to wait a while to use NX7.
Thanks.

 

[JohnRBaker]

If you're going wait any amount of time at all, you might at well just go directly to NX 7.5.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.