CAD Forum

We've had an item in our SW implementation backlog of getting hidden lines to look like they did before and like people are used to. We had assumed it was low hanging fruit, but it seems not so. Please tell me that it >is< possible to tell Solidworks to put hidden lines on a specific layer so that we can set the hidden line behavior in the document properties and therefor part of the templates.

I can see that the user can set the color of the hidden lines in the system settings. Also see that document settings has a place to set line style and font. This doesn't give me warm fuzzies as half of the line behavior can be set in the template and the other half is in system settings (windows reg)

If it's color you are wanting to change, I think you are out of luck. From the Knowledge Base:
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Solution Id: S-068380
Product: SOLIDWORKS Premium 2015
Created: 3/31/2015
Technically Reviewed Date: 11/27/2019
Area: Drawings
Sub-Area: Layers
Question: In a drawing view, how do I change the hidden line color via layer settings?
Answer: It is not possible to change hidden line color via changing the layer of the individual hidden line.

User can change the line color in one of the 2 methods:

1. Set system option "Color>Color scheme settings>Drawings, Hidden Model Edges" to the desired color. It will change all of the hidden lines color

2. Select the hidden line in the drawing view>right mouse click>select "line color" icon to change the line color individually.

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I don't fully understand, but when I change the layer, the color changes. or

What exactly do you mean by hidden lines?
Is this what you are searching for? Or do you want to show hidden tangent edges in the view (which you have to do manually on each view then or with a macro on all views)?

And as far as I know (and I was just looking into this last week) @JSculley is correct. Manually changing the lines would be your only option for coloring something within the view. This is, I think, because drawings are assemblies and hidden lines are edges that SolidWorks colors.

If it's color you are wanting to change, I think you are out of luck.

Ömür Tokman wrote: ↑Thu Sep 30, 2021 8:30 am I don't fully understand, but when I change the layer, the color changes.
2021-09-30_15-28-07.png
2021-09-30_15-30-56.png

or

2021-09-30_15-32-03.png
2021-09-30_15-32-48.png

I believe those are sketch lines you're showing. He's referring to hidden model edges in a Drawing view.

Can you set it in the system settings, and then lock down those settings in the admin install? I haven't messed around with it, but I believe the admin can lock down certain aspects of the system settings so individual users can't change them.

Edit: Brand new https://www.cati.com/blog/2020/10/solid ... ve-images/

Craig Schultz wrote: ↑Thu Sep 30, 2021 2:11 pm Can you set it in the system settings, and then lock down those settings in the admin install? I haven't messed around with it, but I believe the admin can lock down certain aspects of the system settings so individual users can't change them.

Edit: Brand new https://www.cati.com/blog/2020/10/solid ... ve-images/

This is pretty much where we landed as well, but I marked @JSculley 's post because he had ref to the SPR.
Wouldn't it make more sense to just be able to assign a layer to each type of drawing object. Then configure the layer. Default everything to one or two layers then let companies adjust as needed. Considering just hidden lines, they completely ignore layers but we can still make layers? Then in Doc settings we can set the line type for template behavior, but the color is in System settings. With settings for just one thing scattered all over, a consistent print is a unicorn.

Wouldn't it make more sense...

Yep, it would.