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Object from imported CAD file not visible unless it is selected (Color Property issue)

Question

Opening a STEP file, the object is not visible unless it is selected, and after a while, I determined that the object appears white against the white TracePro background, so I changed the color. I am not sure whether this is on purpose or not, but I have to select all surfaces to change the color - it is not working by selecting the object and changing the color. Is this a problem of the graphics interface? What can I do? Working around helps but I hope this is not what I always have to do. It seems as if this is only happening with this object.

Synopsis

Solution

In summary, there are two ways to remedy this problem:

Change the color of the imported white objects and/or surfaces to a darker color.
Change the background color in the Model Window to a dark color using View|Options|Color.

The observations you have made are not a graphics problem, they are related to the application of Color Properties. Color Properties can be applied to objects and/or surfaces. The behavior of applying a color property to an object is different than applying other properties in TracePro, as it follows more of a CAD convention that we inherit from ACIS, the CAD engine used for TracePro. The behavior is that Color Properties applied to a surface take precedence over Color Properties applied to an object. For example, if a cube has the color blue applied to 3 surfaces, in TracePro you would see 3 blue surfaces and 3 green surfaces (green is the default color when no property is applied, which can be changed under View/Customize). If you next selected the object, and applied the color red, the 3 surfaces that first appeared green would now appear red. However, the Color Property red is not actually applied to the 3 surfaces. This behavior allows you to single out certain surfaces of interest with one or more colors, and to change the rest of the colors on the object without re-applying the colors to the surfaces of interest. In this case, the STEP file comes in with the White property applied to all surfaces. They probably receive the white property from a CAD program that has a dark background where the objects appear white. Once the file is in this condition, as you learned, you need to highlight each surface. Once the group is highlighted, you can either apply a different color to the surfaces, or you could apply " None" to the surfaces and the object would appear green. Once " None" is applied, you can now change the color by applying it to the object rather than the individual surfaces. An alternative solution is to change the background color scheme of the Model window to one that contrasts with the color of the imported objects/surfaces. Use View|Options|Color to accomplish this.