Announcement
October 22, 2015

Posted on October 22, 2015 by Application Consultant, Jim Swain
I was working with a class the other day and I was trying to figure out a way to visually show how some internal parts were configured. We got to talking about how we could show this on a drawing to help the assembly instructions. To do this we decided that what we really wanted to do was show internal components in a view that still showed the entire housing. I tried a break out section view, but I didn’t really think it got the point across. So I experimented some more, and here is what I did…
Here is the assembly file, with the housing turned to clear.Jim1
As I said, when I put views of this on a drawing I didn’t like the results. Here is the assembly shown with hidden lines removed, hidden lines shown and as a Break Out section view.Jim2
None of these really capture the effect I was after. Here I’ve copied the left view to another sheet, and pasted another two copies of that view in arrow. I’ve also expanded the Browser for each of those views.Jim3
So to get everything shown, but the internal components standing out I went to the middle view’s Browser and right clicked on the housing. (The housing is named 300.) I set the housing to Transparent so I could now see the interior components. Looks promising.Jim4Jim5
The next step was to change the way the housing’s edges were displayed. Another right click on the housing and I changed the component edge display properties to Dotted. You have to first turn off the By Layer check box, then grab the line style you want from the drop down list. I looked at changing the line weight of the dotted lines to see the housing a bit better, but didn’t like the result too much.Jim6Jim7Jim8Jim9
Please make sure you turn on the Transparent, otherwise the effect is weird:Jim10
I still thought the dotted lines were too faint, so went back and tried the Dashed Space line type. Now that gave the effect I wanted.Jim11Jim12
You can make these changes to any component in the view’s model tree. For a more complicated model tree you may want to try changing everything to the dashed space line type, then change the components you are highlighting back to By Layer.
I hope this helps you get the point across when you are making your drawings.
Jim