Isolation and opacity control

00:02

Isolation and opacity control.

00:06

In this video, we’ll use Isolate, change the opacity of a component, use Unisolate All, create a section view and create a named view.

00:16

In Fusion 360, we want to carry on with our gear reduction housing assembly.

00:21

This housing assembly has a lot of different hardware in it and it also has several different housing components, including our housing mount.

00:31

If we go into our housing component and we show all of the different components in this case, our front, our back and the mid-section of our housing.

00:39

Notice that there's a lot on the screen and we can't really see anything inside of the housing.

00:45

So we want to talk about different ways that we can change the visualization of our assembly to make it easier to focus on specific components.

00:53

The first thing that we can do is we can hide individual components or bodies by using the eye icon.

00:59

It is also important to note that we are currently using Component Color Cycling to easily identify the differences between components.

01:07

This helps us identify things like hardware that's the same and in this case, also different areas of our housing.

01:15

So again, if we want to hide specific elements for example, the housing mount, we can simply select the eye icon next to it and change its visibility.

01:24

This can also be done for multiple components.

01:27

For example, if I shift select all the hardware, I can right click and I can change its visibility by using Show/Hide or by hitting V on the keyboard.

01:38

We also have the option to right click and show all components or show all bodies.

01:42

If anything's hidden and we use show all components, it will use the ones that are currently selected.

01:48

For example, if I go to the top level, right click and use show all components, it will bring all of them back.

01:54

But what if we want to focus our attention on one component and we don't want to go through the process of hiding everything?

02:00

Well, in this case, if we want to just work on the front housing, we can right click on it and select Isolate.

02:07

Isolate will automatically change the visibility of all other components, allowing us to just see the one that we’re interested in.

02:14

We can then right click and select Unisolate to bring all the other components back.

02:20

But what if you right click and you isolate it but forget which component you were working with because maybe things are hidden?

02:27

You can right click at the top level and select Unisolate All which will bring all of those components back.

02:33

Let's go ahead and hide the sheet metal lever and let's hide the housing mount and let's talk about opacity control.

02:40

We want to expand the housing and focus our attention on the front cover.

02:44

If we right click on the front cover, we have something called Opacity Control.

02:49

We can change the opacity of components allowing us to see directly through while having them still be inside of the current assembly.

02:57

The opacity can be changed in 10% increments from 100% all the way down to 10%.

03:03

Or you can use a custom opacity.

03:06

The custom opacity gives you the option to use a slider on the selected component or multiple components.

03:14

From here now we can see the gears inside the housing.

03:17

So if we go into our joints and we take a look at a revolute joint for example.

03:22

We can animate the model and we can look at the motion inside of the housing without having to hide or isolate any components.

03:31

If we want to change the opacity back, we need to go back to that component, right click and change the opacity back to 100%.

03:40

Let's go back to a home view and let's talk about something else called Named Views.

03:46

Named views are a way for us to create a custom view that we can go back to at any point in time.

03:52

The named views folder contains views for things like top, front, right and the home position.

03:59

Also note that we are animating between those different views.

04:03

Same thing, if we use the view cube and we go between things like front, right or top.

04:10

But if we want to create a custom section view for example and we want to create a custom named view.

04:16

We can do that by going to Inspect, Section Analysis, picking a specific planar face or one of the default planes.

04:25

This can be done by holding down the left mouse button and selecting the YZ plane in this case.

04:32

Once I create that view, I'm going to say, OK.

04:34

And now I want to create a nice symmetric view that's looking into the housing, but it's not completely a front view.

04:41

So I'm going to navigate to that view, I'm gonna slightly rotate it.

04:45

Then I'll right click on my named views folders and create a new named view.

04:49

By selecting it again, I can rename it and I'm going to call this Section Iso.

04:55

It's important to note that the section view and the named view are not inherently linked.

05:00

If we click on Section Iso, it goes back to this view position.

05:04

But the section view being active has nothing to do with the named view.

05:08

It's just simply a way for us to relate back to specific orientation.

05:13

Named views can be used downstream and things like detailed drawings.

05:17

So they're extremely helpful for us to create named views, especially if you wanna look at specific areas of components.

05:24

Let's create one more named view.

05:26

Let's hide the front cover and the back housing.

05:30

Let's rotate this around and let's focus on the interaction between these two gears.

05:35

I'm going to right click and create a new named view and I'm going to call this one Gear Close Up.

05:42

So at any point in time if I rotate back to a home view and I click Gear Close Up, I can go back to that gear view.

05:52

We also note that this highlights a problem between these bolts and the large gear.

05:56

These bolts are too long for this area and the assembly and they're causing an intersection and that's something that we can deal with later.

06:03

But finding these problems can be done with tools like interference or by simply inspecting the model manually.

06:10

If we were to use interference, we could select all the components in the assembly and compute to find those interferences.

06:17

You can see here that we have an interference between the hardware and the housing as well as the hardware and the gear.

06:25

And we have some interference between two of our gears.

06:27

It's slightly overlap.

06:29

I'm not concerned with the gear overlap, but obviously the hardware is a problem that needs to be resolved.

06:35

At this point, let's bring back all of our components by right clicking on the top level and we're going to use the option to show all components.

06:44

We'll navigate back to a home view.

06:46

We're going to hide our housing mount and the sheet metal lever, minimize the housing.

06:51

Go back to home view so it fits the screen and save the design before moving on.