On the week before SolidWorks World 2010, I wrote the first post in this series where I showed you how to create the multi-bodied part for a peppermint candy. Today, we are going to finish the part model by applying the appearances to part to finally make it look like a peppermint candy. You might be asking yourself why I want to apply the appearances at this time rather then wait till we bring the scene into PhotoView 360. Well, the answer is easy. For some reason when I opened the part in PV360 without adding the appearances ahead of time, I was unable to select the individual solid bodies. That is not to say that it is not possible but rather then mess with it, I took the easy solution.

If you missed the first part of this series( Indulge Your Sweet Tooth ~ Part1), you might want to go back and build the model. You will not be able to do the following exercise without having created the model ahead of time.

Apply Appearances to the Peppermint Part Model

1. Open the Peppermint Part file created earlier.

2. Press F5 on your keyboard to display the Selection Filter toolbar. If you reassigned the F5 key to another function, you can display the Select Filter toolbar in the menus by clicking View -> Toolbars -> Selection Filter.

3. In the Selection Filter toolbar, click the Filter Solid Bodies button. This will prevent any object in the part that is not a solid body from being included in the selection set.

After clicking the button, the mouse pointer will update to include a filter icon. This will be the only visual cue that you are in a filter mode for selection.

4.  With the Solid Bodies filter enabled, select the strips on the peppermint part model while holding the CTRL key on the keyboard.

5. After pre-selecting the solid bodies that make up the stripes for the peppermint candy, click the Appearances tab in the Task Pane. If you have previously disabled the Task Pane, it can be enabled by selecting the Task Pane option in the View menu.

6.  You are free to select any material for the bodies of the peppermint but I found the materials that work best for the candies are the High Gloss Plastic materials. In the top pane of the Appearances / Scenes task pane tab, brose to the folder that contains the High Gloss Plastic appearances.

7. In the lower pane of the tab, locate the Red High Gloss Plastic appearance. Since we pre-selected the solid bodies for the striped portion of the candy, all that is left to do is double-click the appearance in the lower pane and it will be assigned to the selected bodies.

After double-clicking the appropriate appearance, the solid bodies in the part should appear as below:

8. With the Solid Bodies Filter still enabled, select the rest of the stripes of the candy while holding the CTRL key.

9.  In the lower pane of the Appearances tab, locate the White High Gloss Plastic material. Double-click the appearance to apply it to the pre-selected solid bodies.

10. The peppermint part model is now ready for building the scene that will ultimately be used for creating our rendering. At this time, you can now disable the Solid Body Filter in the Selection Filter toolbar by clicking the button again.

11. If you are like me and you do not like having any unused toolbars taking up valuable real estate, you can hide the toolbar by pressing F5 again. If you have the F5 function key assigned elsewhere, you can hide the toolbar by clicking View -> Toolbars -> Selection Filters.

12. Save the model and exit the part.  On Wednesday we will use the part to build the scene.

Review

In this tutorial you learned how to use selection filters to select solid bodies in a part file without using the Solid Bodies folder in the FeatureManager. Selection Filters are extremely helpful for making selections in drawings, parts and assemblies and a function I would like to see used more often.

In addition to using selection filters, you also learned how to apply an appearance to multiple entities at the same time. Not only does this make the initial application of appearances quicker and easier but it will make changing the appearances in PV360 easier as well. The selection set used for applying the appearances will be available in the model if you opened it in PV360. The Appearances selection tool in PV360 will allow you to update the appearance of the similar bodies.

Make sure you come back on Wednesday to learn how to create the scene that will then be used in PhotoView 360 to create the rendering. If you have not already done so, make sure that you subscribe to my RSS feed so you don’t miss any future posts.

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