AutoCAD Mechanical Associative Hide

Transcription

1 AutoCAD Mechanical Associative Hide Jim Swain Design Applications Engineer Manufacturing Solutions Synergis September 26, 2005 This document is an introduction to the hiding tools available in AutoCAD Mechanical. These techniques can be used to automatically remove geometry from view, or to change its display to a hidden line style.

2 AutoCAD Mechanical Associative Hide The topics covered are: Associative Hide Editing Hide Situations Deleting Hide Situations Associative Hide Basics (AMSHIDE) The Associative Hide command allows geometry to be picked for the foreground. Foreground objects form a boundary, much like the BHATCH command. Any background geometry (items not selected as foreground geometry) inside or crossing that boundary are displayed as hidden lines or not displayed at all. The result of a single Associative Hide command is called a Hide Situation. The background objects aren t broken or deleted. Their visibility is partially or entirely changed. An object that is partially hidden can still be selected with a single pick. If the boundary geometry is changed, shifting what is within the boundary, the background geometry automatically updates. As an item is uncovered it becomes visible. Note: If structure isn t currently being used it will be enabled by the AMSHIDE command. It doesn t typically affect the behavior of the rest of the drawing. Standard parts, such as fasteners, will show as items in the Mechanical Browser once Structure is enabled. The display style of the background geometry can later be changed by editing the hide situation.

3 Hiding Objects Start the Create Associative Hide command Select the objects that will displayed in normal line types. These foreground objects must form a closed outline, similar to the boundary for a hatch object. The Create Hide Situation dialog box will show the objects selected. In this example Level1 are the foreground objects, Level2 are the background objects. It has buttons to toggle the display of hidden lines and how non-object lines (lines not on Mechanical s contour layers) are handled. The completed hide situation will be displayed in the Mechanical Browser, under the Hide Situations heading. Changing the Display of Background Objects After a hide situation has been created there are several ways to change the display style of the hidden lines. The easiest method is to right-click on the particular hide situation in the Mechanical Browser. Click on the Display Hidden Lines choice to toggle the display type. (See Renaming Hide Situations to make it easier to determine which hide situation to select.)

4 When hidden lines are shown the Browser s icon will show magenta lines over the folder. The hidden lines are obscured the icon is only the folder. Another method is to edit the hide situation. Editing a Hide Situation Once a hide situation has been created it can be changed with the Edit Associative Hide command. This command can be started by several different methods: 1. Right-click on the hide situation, in the Browser. 2. Toolbar flyout, then pick as from the pull-down menu. 3. Pull-down menu (Modify > Associative Hide > Edit Associative Hide Situation), then pick an object that is in the hide situation. The tooltip will display the name of the hide situation that is selected. Once the hide situation has been selected the Edit dialog box is displayed. It has its own browser on the left side. Selecting different items in the browser will display different options in the dialog box.

5 There are also command buttons down the far left side of the dialog box. The bottom button (Preview) will temporarily turn off the dialog box so the graphics screen can be seen. An <Enter> or <Esc> will bring the dialog box back. With the top item selected the general display options can be changed. Selecting the foreground objects (Level1) allows objects to be added or removed from the foreground group. The level can be renamed here, such as to the name of the foreground part. The Advanced tab can be used to control how islands are treated, similar to the BHATCH command. Selecting the object in the browser (i.e. Free Objects, meaning ordinary geometry) allows that group of objects to be excluded from the foreground calculations. When working with Mechanical files having component structure this can be used to have some parts in a subassembly be ignored by the hide situation.

6 There are similar options for the background (Level2) objects. Additional levels can be created within the hide situation, when there are multiple parts obscuring each other. The levels can be pictured like the layers in a cake, where each level is either above or below the next. To indicate that a level is above another it must be show above the other in the browser. Renaming the Hide Situation By default each hide situation is given the name Hide. This can slow selecting which hide situation to edit when a change is needed. Clicking on each name in the Browser highlights the associated geometry in the graphics window, but it is helpful to also change the name of each hide situation to make identification easier. Right-click on the hide situation and choose the Rename option. Hide situations can also be given descriptive names when the hide situation is created.

7 Suppressing or Deleting a Hide Situation Right clicking on a hide situation in the browser shows two additional commands: Suppress and Delete. Suppressing a hide situation will display all the geometry in normal style. The browser icon will turn gray. It can be restored by rightclicking choosing Suppress again. It isn t usually necessary to suppress hide situations to select hidden items. If a portion of the object can be picked (for a Move or other Modify command) then the entire object is selected. If a foreground object is moved so new items have to be hidden, the hide situation can be edited and the desired objects can be added to the background group. If there are a large number of changes then it can be easier to delete the hide situation and create a brand new one.