Is there any way of saving views in the items list? eg I have an imported model with several hundred individual items which make up various assemblies. By setting up the visibility of these items i can view each assembly but I can’t find any way of saving these views. It’s a pain having to set it up each time.
Also is there a way to hide-all/show-all items?
Hi Kal, it’s currently not possible to have a saved Items window view and there is also no hide all/ show all option.
A workaround, for now, can be to sort closely linked objects into folders. This way you can simply tap on the visibility icon by the folder to turn on/off visibility for objects within the folder.
Thanks Victor.
Is this something on the road map or should I add it to the wish-list?
@Kal
As @Victor_Shapr3D has said Saving Views is not an option, my MO is to seek options that are available to achieve the objective.
Effectively a View is only available when deploying a .shapr File as seen on the iPad Screen.
A ScreenShot, or if a ‘peek’ will suffice Design Thumbnails are other options.
Given the above a View is probably best stored as a separate .shapr File.
It is possible to hide/show ALL, simply create a top level Items Folder to contain those holding Assemblies.
In the following 3 questions it is appreciated that you may choose not to answer.
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Is it possible for you to reveal the quantity of Assemblies, ‘various’ being rather too vague to assist with a valid solution?
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Also can you say roughly how many Views you will require, or will this depend on circumstances that require a View to be created on demand?
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Can you share the purpose for which Views, other than as seen on screen, are needed?
I have, separately from this Thread, been pondering the best way to handle large quantities of Items. Going as far as creating a Design containing:
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Items Folder - to hold all Assembly Folders
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40 Assembly Folders, numbered 1 to 40, each holding 5 Items
Above all it is simplistic for time saving purposes but it does illustrate several aspects that need attention. If you feel it may be helpful I will make it available.
The purpose was to obtain hands on experience of hide/show potential of up to any of 200 Items. Accepting that this need is unlikely in practice.
My conclusion is that this can best be handled by Designs that effectively are Assemblies and when combined become the whole ‘grand’ Design.
I have a Post in progress that may be of interest.
Whatever route you choose meaningful FolderNaming will be of paramount importance.
Hi Kal, thanks for your response. Actually this is not on our near plans and I’m sure will be sharing your feedback with our product team and hopefully, this might be available sometime in the future.
Hi Gelphyn,
I appreciate your interactions.
I’ll try to explain a bit further. I’m trying to incorporate Shapr3D into my workflow.
I currently use a mid-tier cad system in my day job. We manufacture test benches/systems used in aerospace. While I really really like the modelling engine in shapr3D it is far from replacing my current system. Such things as sheetmetal/tubing/wiring environs and particularly data base abilities don’t exist in shapr3D (yet).
My current plan is this. At the end of the day I download the model into shapr3D then I can work on various items in the model at my leisure and then upload any changes the next day into my model.
Taking a typical test bench it will have various assemblies such as the sheetmetal case, plumbing systems, pump systems, electrical/electronics etc, etc. Each of these assemblies contain as many or as few components as reqd, Say I want to work on a particular assembly I hide all the components I don’t need to see. Often I need to see components outside of an assembly to see how one assembly interacts with another. To achieve this I can go through the items list hide/show what i want to see. I might then have to make changes somewhere else so have to reset visibilities. If I could save various views then it is a simple matter to change from one view to another.
Currently when I import a model it keeps the same hierarchy as my base model which is great but I can’t go changing the folders around to suit in shapr3D as this will change my base model.
Ideally I would set up different views of various assemblies/components to suit then save those views so they can be easily recalled as needed. Added to the current show/hide options it would be great to have a ‘grey’ setting so I can see items but they don’t get in the way of the parts I am working on.
To answer your questions …
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A typical test bench may contain ~1000 individual components making up perhaps 20 assemblies.
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Depends entirely on the test bench however on my CAD station I will often have 20 - 30 ‘views’ set up on any one model.
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Say I want to work on some plumbing items. These are all tucked well inside the case so I don’t want to see the case although I may need one or two case components so I can see how other assemblies interact with certain parts of the case.
To make this useful I would like to see …
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Show/hide/grey individual components.
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Show/hide all
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Show only. (select the items you want to see, hide everything not selected).
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Save current view. (These to be recalled as needed from a drop down list)
At this stage I don’t need to set up folder systems in shapr3D as these are transferred from my base model
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@Kal
Thank you for a very detailed response, it has greatly increased my understanding of your problems.
I realised your problem was lager than normal but not that it was really massive and complex.
IIUC the most difficult aspect is that you need to maintain the structure of your Main File and this prevents using S3D in the way that would enable it to assist more usefully?
If the above is correct it would seem that ANY Filing Structure, including within Design Thumbnails, will not help the situation greatly?
I guess you will have Searched for Assemblies?
If not it is certainly worth a look. Stay safe.
Well no not really. The actual structure of the items list works fine for me. The hierarchal folder structure more or less complies with the model structure. Ie a single component is part of an assembly which is part of another assembly etc is matched by the folder structure. Thing is the ‘list’ can be far more useful and greatly speed modeling with some, what I would have thought, are relatively easy enhancements to implement.
Not that I’m any sort of programmer, but pretty much every cad I’ve ever used had at least a limited ability to save views.
With the items list and folder system the S3d team have given us a way to quantify each component so now both the app and us can start storing all sorts of information about that component and manipulating it in all sorts of useful, interesting and amazing ways, if we have the tools to interface with that db. Being able to save visibility’s is a simple example.
I hope I’m not sounding too critical, I really like using S3d as a modeler, it’s fast and stable, both of which are huge assets in cad trust me! It imports some of my bigger models without blinking which is pretty impressive on my 1st gen iPad pro.
I would love to be able to incorporate it more in my workflow. Once they get a few things running like effective 3d snaps, true assemblies (3d geometric constraints), rule of thumb, make sure it goes together before sending drawings out … basic data basing (vital for BoM’s etc) and maybe a little ‘synchronous technology’ … the wish list is never ending …
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@Kal
You are doing very much as I would in the circumstances.
Squeezing S3D to give up everything useful and then making the best use of everything available. The good news is that you are able to achieve results far greater than I had imagined from your first Post.
This MO certainly beats waiting, and there seems to be an awful lot in the melting pot.
Regarding Views, could it be the the lack of history in S3D as a Direct Modeller, i.e., Components are current with nil historical content available?
Working only within S3D, my MO regarding keeping a ‘View’ is to capture the Design as a View at that point in time. Then create a Duplicate to further develop the original Design. Currently to keep everything under control Filing is done using Files.app. This certainly would not function scaled up.
Almost 2 years later since 2020.
Is “saving views“ still not in the road map?
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