Phantom parts

[MJuric]

so this is something that I end up doing on occasion and I end up "Re-Learning" ways to do it every time and every time I'm not happy or satisfied with the outcome, work around etc.

Phantom parts in drawings is something that is pretty basic stuff and has been used forever. Phantom parts should be shown in phantom lines and NOT hide non phantom parts. They should also not be in the BOM. The things I've tried the most are.

1) Envelopes - These "Kinda work" except they hide everything behind them. For instance right now I'm trying to show a piece of stock with several parts that get machined out of that stock in a fixture. ALL of those should be phantom parts. If I envelope everything only the stock is shown in phantom and actual parts behind it are also hidden.

2) Alternative Views - Works fairly well because you can exclude parts from the BOM but if you have multiple parts Alternative views also hide parts inside of parts. So in this case my alternative view shows the stock but since the parts I want to show are in the stock they are not visible. To get this to work you have to have a different alternative view for every part you want to show and hide/suppress the parts that are hiding other parts.

The question is what is your approach to dealing with phantom parts....yes I tried looking in the old forum and found a few posts on the subject. One the pictures didn't show up, another I couldn't see the responses and a third had links to other posts....that weren't actually linked to anything other than the old forums splash screen.

Edit to Add: And you can't dimension to alternate views.

[matt]

so this is something that I end up doing on occasion and I end up "Re-Learning" ways to do it every time and every time I'm not happy or satisfied with the outcome, work around etc.

Phantom parts in drawings is something that is pretty basic stuff and has been used forever. Phantom parts should be shown in phantom lines and NOT hide non phantom parts. They should also not be in the BOM. The things I've tried the most are.

1) Envelopes - These "Kinda work" except they hide everything behind them. For instance right now I'm trying to show a piece of stock with several parts that get machined out of that stock in a fixture. ALL of those should be phantom parts. If I envelope everything only the stock is shown in phantom and actual parts behind it are also hidden.

2) Alternative Views - Works fairly well because you can exclude parts from the BOM but if you have multiple parts Alternative views also hide parts inside of parts. So in this case my alternative view shows the stock but since the parts I want to show are in the stock they are not visible. To get this to work you have to have a different alternative view for every part you want to show and hide/suppress the parts that are hiding other parts.

The question is what is your approach to dealing with phantom parts....yes I tried looking in the old forum and found a few posts on the subject. One the pictures didn't show up, another I couldn't see the responses and a third had links to other posts....that weren't actually linked to anything other than the old forums splash screen.

Have you tried using Component Line Font? But you want it to use a font and have a wireframe display style. The only way I can think to do that is to set up the model that way and then show the drawing view shaded. In the drawing, you can't set individual components to different display styles, but you can do that in the model. It's a little surprising that you can't set individual components in a drawing view to different display states. Maybe use a display state to set up the model. It's ugly, but it might do what you're looking for in lieu of an enhancement request.

[Glenn Schroeder]

We do something similar here where I work showing the vehicle approaching the test installation, leaving the test installation, and the at rest position. We want the first two to be dotted lines instead of solid. Initially I used the Component Line Font feature to do that. I later tried doing them as Envelope Parts, but it didn't seem to be any easier, so we've gone back to using Component Line Font.

As far as your issue with Envelopes hiding the components behind them, would it work for you to right-click on those components and choose "Hide/Show > Show Hidden Edges"? The edges behind the Envelope would probably come in as dotted, but you could fix that with Component Line Font.

I know this all seems circuitous, but I'm not sure there's a better option (unless of course Matt's suggestion above works for you).

About the time I got all that typed out something else occurred to me that might work well for you, especially if your phantom component isn't especially complex.

1. Insert your drawing view.

2. Use the Convert Entities sketch tool to convert all edges to sketch lines.

3. Hide the component. All components that were behind that one will show up but the sketch lines will stay.

4. Use the Layer tool or Line Format toolbar to set the desired color, line style, etc for the sketch lines.

[MJuric]

We do something similar here where I work showing the vehicle approaching the test installation, leaving the test installation, and the at rest position. We want the first two to be dotted lines instead of solid. Initially I used the Component Line Font feature to do that. I later tried doing them as Envelope Parts, but it didn't seem to be any easier, so we've gone back to using Component Line Font.

As far as your issue with Envelopes hiding the components behind them, would it work for you to right-click on those components and choose "Hide/Show > Show Hidden Edges"? The edges behind the Envelope would probably come in as dotted, but you could fix that with Component Line Font.

I know this all seems circuitous, but I'm not sure there's a better option (unless of course Matt's suggestion above works for you).

About the time I got all that typed out something else occurred to me that might work well for you, especially if your phantom component isn't especially complex.

1. Insert your drawing view.

2. Use the Convert Entities sketch tool to convert all edges to sketch lines.

3. Hide the component. All components that were behind that one will show up but the sketch lines will stay.

4. Use the Layer tool or Line Format toolbar to set the desired color, line style, etc for the sketch lines.

I've never used the component font you two suggested so I'll look at that. Here's an example of what I'm attempting to do at the moment. I did this by showing two alternative views. The "Square" part is the stock and is in one ALT view, the other stuff inside the square is the actual part being machined out. In this case I'm just verifying tool clearances but the need is greater in other cases. So in this cases there are actually several parts in there. You can kind of see that in the last view as it's showing the smaller and larger part but only bits in pieces that don't hide each other. There are actually a few other parts in there but they are almost entirely hidden by the two parts being shown.

[josh]

Alternate Position Views are really the best way I have found to do this. You mentioned being unable to dimension them... This was a bug a couple versions ago, but as far as I can tell works in 2020. You don't actually have to create multiple configs to use for the different alternate position views either. The user interface forces you to select or create a different config from the parent, but within the API you can specify any config, even if it's the same as the parent. I've attached a macro that will let you type in whatever config name you want.

[MJuric]

Alternate Position Views are really the best way I have found to do this. You mentioned being unable to dimension them... This was a bug a couple versions ago, but as far as I can tell works in 2020. You don't actually have to create multiple configs to use for the different alternate position views either. The user interface forces you to select or create a different config from the parent, but within the API you can specify any config, even if it's the same as the parent. I've attached a macro that will let you type in whatever config name you want.

I'm still on 2018 so if this has been fixed in Future versions YEAH!

I guess I didn't need to make different references for what I did either. I have one assy that has the parts and stock in it. I have one special config that shows only that assy. Don't really need to do that but found it easier because I only show those parts in a few views. I then can place two ALT views, one shows the stock which hides all the parts and the other I hide the stock and it shows the parts. I could repeat that as many times as I want I suppose and keep hiding parts.

I'm finding more and more reasons to get IT to upgrade though.

[MJuric]

but as far as I can tell works in 2020.

I thought I read somewhere that "Alt View" or something similar was introduced for parts as well. Is that true? We do quite a few fitting spacers and it sure would be nice to be able to have the part as designed and as manufactured to show fitting stock.

[Glenn Schroeder]

I thought I read somewhere that "Alt View" or something similar was introduced for parts as well. Is that true? We do quite a few fitting spacers and it sure would be nice to be able to have the part as designed and as manufactured to show fitting stock.

http://help.solidworks.com/2020/English ... 1c211e#Pg0

[MJuric]

http://help.solidworks.com/2020/English ... 1c211e#Pg0

Nice!

Thanks

[Glenn Schroeder]

We do something similar here where I work showing the vehicle approaching the test installation, leaving the test installation, and the at rest position. We want the first two to be dotted lines instead of solid. Initially I used the Component Line Font feature to do that. I later tried doing them as Envelope Parts, but it didn't seem to be any easier, so we've gone back to using Component Line Font.

As far as your issue with Envelopes hiding the components behind them, would it work for you to right-click on those components and choose "Hide/Show > Show Hidden Edges"? The edges behind the Envelope would probably come in as dotted, but you could fix that with Component Line Font.

I know this all seems circuitous, but I'm not sure there's a better option (unless of course Matt's suggestion above works for you).

About the time I got all that typed out something else occurred to me that might work well for you, especially if your phantom component isn't especially complex.

1. Insert your drawing view.

2. Use the Convert Entities sketch tool to convert all edges to sketch lines.

3. Hide the component. All components that were behind that one will show up but the sketch lines will stay.

4. Use the Layer tool or Line Format toolbar to set the desired color, line style, etc for the sketch lines.

I just read that again. I missed an important detail. #2 should say "Use the Convert Entities sketch tool to convert all edges of the phantom part to sketch lines."