Earlier this week I ‘reintroduced’ Appearance Callouts in The Appearance of Things – Appearance Callouts. If you haven’t read it yet, I would recommend that you read Monday’s post before carrying on here. For the second part of our three part series, I will be covering the Display Pane. The Display Pane provides a simple interface to view the display settings of parts and drawings. In assemblies, the Display Pane can also be used to apply changes to the settings.

Viewing the Display Pane

The Display Pane is part of the FeatureManager that is normally hidden from view but can be shown by clicking the double arrows at the upper-right corner of the window. The Display Pane expands from behind the FeatureManager.

Regardless on what document you are viewing, parts, drawings or assemblies, the Display Pane is divided into six columns. Shown below are the six columns in the Display Pane; Hide/Show, Display Mode, Color, Texture, RealView and Transparency.

Displayed Settings for Parts

The Display Pane does not allow for change the settings for Parts but you can view the color and texture settings of a Part. In Parts you will be able to view:

• If a Part, Body or Feature is Hidden or Visible
• The color applied to a Part, Body or Feature
• The texture applied to a Part, Body or Feature
• The RealView Color if RealView or PhotoWorks is installed
• If a Part, Body or Feature is transparent or solid

Displayed Settings for Drawings

Just like with parts, you can not change the settings for drawings but you can derive some valuable information from the Display Pane. In Drawings you will be able to view:

• If a Drawing View, Projection, Auxiliary View or Detail is Hidden or Visible
• Which display mode is applied to a view (Wireframe, Hidden Lines Visible, Hidden Lines Removed, Shaded with Edges or Shaded)

Display Pane for Assemblies

Unlike with Parts and Drawings, you can make modifications to the appearance of components in the Display Pane.The view below shows the Display Pane for the assembly we modified in the last post. Here you will be able to see the that all the components in the assembly are visible and the components are displayed as shaded with edges. You will also be able to quickly see the colors that are applied to each component and the texture that is applied to two of the components.

Changing the Appearance of a Component

Changes applied to a component do not affect the actual part file but instead are local to the assembly. In the Color, Texture, and RealView columns you will notice the lower half of the box has a color applied. This shows that color or texture applied at the part level. When you apply a color in the assembly, the upper half of the square is colored.

To apply a color or texture of a component click on the box in either the Color, Texture or RealView column next to the desire component. In this example, we will apply a Cast texture to one of the Brushed Metal parts in the assembly. Here we click on the Texture box for the component and select Texture. Obviously, if we wanted to apply a color we would select the Color box.

In the Texture PropertyManager we select the desire texture, in this case we selected Cast, and click the green check mark.

Notice that we did not actually change the previous texture, Brushed Metal, that was applied to the component. We only overrode at the assembly level, designated with a split texture display box.

As I mentioned above you can also change the Display Mode of a component in an assembly. I find this especially useful when I want to show the outline of a component without hiding the other components in an assembly. In the Display Mode box select one of the following: Wireframe, Hidden Lines Visible, Hidden Lines Removed, Shaded with Edges or Shaded.

Like I said I love doing this because I can see what the component looks like and how it interacts with the assembly without obscuring the other components in the assembly.

As you can see, with the Display Pane you have the ability to make all of the display modifications of components in an assembly. It’s quick, it’s easy and best of all there isn’t a whole lot of commands to remember.

Later this week, we will concolude this three-part series with how to tie all this together with Display States, so see you later.

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