Managing the Background Visualization       

This task shows how to display and filter the visualization of geometric elements contained in a plane or a set of planar geometries in the 3D area.

Open the 2Dmode1.CATPart document.
 

  1. From the Tools toolbar, activate the 2D Visualization Mode sub-toolbar:

    Five visualization modes are available:
    • Pickable visible background: all geometries are visible with a standard intensity and can be picked.

    • No 3D background: all geometries outside the plane are invisible.

    • Unpickable background: all geometries outside the plane are visible with a standard intensity, but they cannot be picked.
    • Low intensity background: all geometries outside the plane are visible, but with a low intensity and can be picked.
    • Unpickable low intensity background: all geometries outside the plane are visible, but with a low intensity and they cannot be picked.
    An additional icon is available:
    • Lock current view point: the view point is locked, provided a visualization mode is activated.
      This icon is disabled if none of the visualization commands is activated.

  2. Click Pickable visible background .

  3. Select a plane. Here we selected Plane.3.

    A Work on Support is automatically created. If a Work on Support already exists in the same plane, it is activated.
    • This capability is only available within a CATPart environment. It is not available with the Sketcher workbench.
    • You can also select a set of elements (for instance two lines) belonging to the same plane in order to determine a plane.
      If the elements are in different planes, an error message is issued.
      Note that multi-selection is only available before entering the command.

  4. Click Pickable visible background to deselect it.

    The Work on Support is removed from the specification tree, if it is automatically created and if there are no geometries created on this Work on Support.

  5. Click No 3D background and select Join.1.

    All geometric elements available in Join.1 plane are visible. All the other elements are invisible.

  6. Click Unpickable background .

    You can only pick the geometric elements that are in Join.1 plane.
    Other elements cannot be picked:

  7. Click Low intensity background .

    Geometric elements that are in the plane are displayed normally. However, elements that are not in the plane are displayed with a low intensity (including curves and wireframe elements) but they still can be picked:

  8. Click Unpickable low intensity background .

    Geometric elements that are not in the plane are displayed with a low intensity and they cannot be picked:

  9. Click Lock current view point .

    Now, you can only perform translations in the plane parallel to the screen and rotations along the axis normal to the screen as well as zoom in and zoom out.
    Note that you must use the mouse to perform these transformations when the current view point is locked.
 
  • Low intensity elements (that are not in the plane) are not displayed in front the plane geometry but behind, even though they are geometrically in front of it.
  • The status (active/inactive) of all the above commands is retained when changing workbench.
  • Visualization modes are temporary, they only act as filters in the 3D area. They disappear once the command is deactivated.