Managing Assemblies

Hide all parts, selected parts, or ‘all other’ parts excluding those selected to aid in visualizing necessary entities for assembling or evaluating movement of an assembly. Select parts in the graphics area or from the Parts list. You are also able to use box select for selecting multiple parts. This command is a toggle: hide/show.

Hide example

Select the parts to hide and click Hide in the context menu. The selected parts before Hide:

The model after Hide:

Hide other parts example

Select the parts you want to visualize and click Hide other parts in the context menu:

Isolate works similarly to Hide, with the difference that unselected parts remain visually present for reference, but muted in color and unavailable for selection until you exit Isolate mode. Any Mate connectors and Mates of non-selected parts are also muted and unavailable for selection. As with the Hide commands, you are able to select the parts in the Feature list, graphics area, and with the box select functions. All Mates and Mate connectors of selected parts are also available for selection in the Mate process.

Use Isolate with individual parts, multiple parts, and groups.

This command is modal: Isolate/Exit Isolate.

As with the Hide commands, you can use box select.

Steps

1. Select a part (or parts) to isolate, either in the Feature list or on the model.
2. Right-click in empty space and select Isolate from the context menu:
3. The selected part is visible and the remainder of the model is faded out. The Isolate dialog opens:

   

4. Use the dropdown and sliding scale to include more top-level parts or subassemblies in the Isolate command:
   1. Expand: connectivity - Expands the Isolate command to bring into view the top-level parts and subassemblies that are mated to the selected part. The first drag brings the entire subassembly into view. The second drag brings another top-level part or entire subassembly into view.

      

      

   2. Expand: distance - Expands the Isolate command to bring into view other parts based on distance in all directions, incrementally, from the center of the selected part. The parts are not necessarily mated to each other. The slider may bring into view more than one part at a time.

      

      

5. Use the Hide transparent parts checkbox to hide the parts that are grayed out (faded); this may help with visualizing the parts in view and also may enhance performance:

   

When modeling, you may need to see a part that is occluded visually by another part or parts, in order to perform some task. To this end, Onshape provides the "Make transparent" command in the context menu for parts and assemblies.

Use these commands to access the parts required for your tasks, instead of painstakingly finding and hiding to access the relevant entities.

Use the shortcut key Shift+“t” to make a part under the cursor transparent (the part under the cursor is highlighted). This command is cumulative; you can use it on part after part, keep all transparent until you select "Exit make transparent" from the context menu, or close the dialog that opens. You can also multi-select parts and then select the command.

A dialog box opens when you initiate the command:

In a Part Studio, you can Expand by distance to use the slider to make each successive part transparent as you drill through to the part you need.

In an Assembly, you can Expand by distance (as in a Part Studio) or by connectivity to use the slider to make each successively connected part transparent as the slider moves.

This command is also available when editing part in-context. For more information on in-context editing, see Modeling In-Context.