David Gaskill, a CADD designer, shares with us some tricks for making parts visible in Autodesk Inventor.

"Have you ever wanted to turn off parts in a view without setting up a new level of detail or view rep, only to find that the Visibility option in the menu is grayed out?



"Right-click the view and choose Edit View. If you find yourself unable to turn off the visibility of a part in a view, you may need to turn off (uncheck) the Associative link in the Drawing View dialog box; this allows you to override the view and turn off individual parts.



"Click OK and return to the view. Select the part to turn the visibility off/on and notice the change in the dialog box: you now have the option to turn off the part's visibility. If you want the part to be visible again, either reverse the process or re-check the Associative box."

Notes from Cadalyst Tip Reviewer Brian Benton: Inventor is a great tool for mechanical design. In the software, the parts created for a model can be made visible — or not — when you choose. Altering the visibility can help you navigate inside your model while working on the various parts.