First Quick Tip for 3DVIA Composer – Selection Techniques

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I have wanted to add a 3DVIA Composer tip to our blog for a short time now and thought it about time that I did.

Like some of my previous SolidWorks tips I hope that everyone using 3DVIA Composer now, will be able to learn something quickly and make use of it everyday.

Here goes then…

For the first topic I have chosen some selection techniques.
If you need to pick a part to show or change properties or you just simply want to dig around an assembly then these tips should help.

  1. Tab key to dig through your assembly
    • If you want to quickly select a part but others are in the way you can simply hover over a part and hit the tab key. This temporarily ghosts the part and allows you to select the one you are after.image
  2. Use the Left Arrow to traverse up the assembly structure.
    • I find it very easy to pick a part in the graphics area but then don’t know which assembly it belongs to without going across to the tree view.
    • The quickest way to select the assembly is to pick the part and then hit the Left Arrow Key. This will first select the part and then after hitting the arrow key you will be selecting all parts in the sub assembly that the initial part belonged to!
  3. The final selection tip I wanted to mention was the “Assembly selection mode.” This can be very useful for the following reason:
    • First if you pick an assembly from the tree or you follow the previous tip, you will be selecting all parts that belong to that assembly… therefore lets say you then translate these parts (any change of property etc)… the translate action is applied to each and every part.
    • If you use Assembly selection mode, there is just one translation applied. This allows you to keep things a little more simple. It will also speed up more complex and large animations as there will be fewer things going on.
    • So how do you use Assembly selection mode?
      • Use the Assembly selection icon imageYou will notice the cursor change and also a blue border around the graphics area.
      • The quickest way however if to press the Alt key when you are selecting a part. This automatically turns on assembly selection and picks the whole assembly not the part.

Please let us know if you have any other 3DVIA Composer tips or let us know any area of 3DVIA you would like to hear more about.

Matthew West

SolidWorks alumnus. I like plate reverb, Rat pedals, Thai curry, New Weird fiction, my kids, Vespas, Jazzmasters, my wife & Raiders of the Lost Ark. Not necessarily in that order.