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We've been struggling with detailing drawings. I hadn't realized the reason our views are so busy with hidden lines is that we cannot find a setting that was popular in Solid Edge.
Checking that box will only show the edges that are hidden by other parts vs showing ALL the hidden lines, (tangents included) For example I don't want to see all the hidden edges of a square tube (internal edges and tangents for example) I only want to see the edges of the tube that are hidden by other parts in the assembly as hidden lines. It makes a huge difference in the views.

Is there a way to only show edges hidden by other parts?

Thank you.

Right-click on the Part in the drawing view, go to Show/Hide and select "Show Hidden Edges" from the fly-out. I don't know if this will show tangent edges, but it will show model edges.

You want to remove tangent edges from your hidden edges is what I'm understanding...?

AlexLachance wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 8:44 am You want to remove tangent edges from your hidden edges is what I'm understanding...?

No, I only want to see edges of selected part(s) that are hidden by other parts, do not show edges of a part that are hidden by the part itself. It really clears up a drawing.

Glenn Schroeder wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 8:40 am Right-click on the Part in the drawing view, go to Show/Hide and select "Show Hidden Edges" from the fly-out. I don't know if this will show tangent edges, but it will show model edges.


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That shows ALL the hidden edges of the part. I didn't explain the question well. We only want to see edges hidden by >other< parts. Not every hidden edge of that part, just the ones that would be visible if some other part wasn't in front of it.

bnemec wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 9:54 am That shows ALL the hidden edges of the part. I didn't explain the question well. We only want to see edges hidden by >other< parts. Not every hidden edge of that part, just the ones that would be visible if some other part wasn't in front of it.

I'm confused. Aren't the edges not behind another Part already showing?

He wants the "tube" show as if it's solid.
Same to all other parts when they're behind other part.
Which will be different depends on view direction.

Make a config for each part that fill all internal voids.

Frederick_Law wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 10:09 am He wants the "tube" show as if it's solid.
Same to all other parts when they're behind other part.
Which will be different depends on view direction.

Make a config for each part that fill all internal voids.

Thank you for the clarification. That can be done by first showing hidden lines, like I described above, then selecting the hidden lines and changing their style, weight, etc with the Line Format toolbar.

He wants it auto, not going through each part.
Maybe macro.

The drawing should have a note saying "hidden edge are removed".

I think it's good enhancement ideal.
Maybe I'll post it in IV forum.

This is not possible with the automatic settings inside solidworks.

However, you can play with a few things...

you COULD create a sketch at the assembly level, show the silhouette entities of a part, then show the sketch at the drawing level and make it hidden lines.
Although, this isn't much different than @Glenn Schroeder 's suggestion.

Thank you Fred, I think you explained it pretty well. But it's not just tubes, same for sheet metal parts molded components etc. The idea is context. When I'm in a part drawing I would expect to see all the hidden lines of every edge in the part, if hidden lines are on. When we get to an assembly drawing (welded thing for example) that drawing is not defining the parts, that's done on the piece part drawings. So showing all the hidden edges of a part is unhelpful. Hidden edges in an assembly drawing would only be the outside edges of the part, not every detail. I wish I could just share some of our SE assemblies and drawings to explain the difference. I'll try to make up some random models in edge to explain.

I'm sorry all, I did a crappy job searching before posting. Probably because there's no term in SW jargon for what we're looking for. So asking for it and searching for it when I don't know what to call it doesn't go well.

Anyway I created a duplicate question, and worse yet, I started the previous thread.

viewtopic.php?t=664

That thread took a different path but is really the same issue and we're still struggling with it. We're getting rebuked by assembly and welding (and vendors and customers) about how crappy our drawings are now. We've tried line weights and font/dash etc. It's just we need to see the edges of parts hidden by other parts but not ALL the hidden edges. Manually turning off all the unwanted hidden edges of a completely or partially hidden part is very very tedious.

bnemec wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 11:55 am Thank you Fred, I think you explained it pretty well. But it's not just tubes, same for sheet metal parts molded components etc. The idea is context. When I'm in a part drawing I would expect to see all the hidden lines of every edge in the part, if hidden lines are on. When we get to an assembly drawing (welded thing for example) that drawing is not defining the parts, that's done on the piece part drawings. So showing all the hidden edges of a part is unhelpful. Hidden edges in an assembly drawing would only be the outside edges of the part, not every detail. I wish I could just share some of our SE assemblies and drawings to explain the difference. I'll try to make up some random models in edge to explain.

I think we handle this mostly with broken out views, sections, explodes, and details. On occasion we may show hidden parts as hidden lines but it's not typical as that is frowned upon in most cases if you're detailing it. All subjective of course depending on the situation. I don't recall our vendors saying our drawings look like crap.....but maybe they are just more polite than yours.

jcapriotti wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 3:25 pm I think we handle this mostly with broken out views, sections, explodes, and details. On occasion we may show hidden parts as hidden lines but it's not typical as that is frowned upon in most cases if you're detailing it. All subjective of course depending on the situation. I don't recall our vendors saying our drawings look like crap.....but maybe they are just more polite than yours.

As I've mentioned here before, whoever made that rule evidently never needed to create a drawing showing rebar placement in concrete.

Really appreciate the feedback. Thank you. I'm on the fence between what @jcapriotti and @Glenn Schroeder are saying.

I've been reviewing with our Manufacturing Engineer that works with welding, when we boil it down there's really not a time we NEED to put a weld callout on a hidden line. Better view layout solves the problem and our history of using the functionality in Solid Edge is probably just laziness on the side of Designers not doing a better job with details and section views.

But, then we have other places that might be more like what Glenn deals with where yeah, we could use a section view to call out embedded rebar, anchorages, etc. But the number of sections to get all of them would make the drawing more cluttered than just showing the hidden item for dimensioning or ballooning for example. I was thinking of rebar, Glenn, when I read your post about showing hidden parts. I knew you have stuff like that in your drawings. IF you have some more complicated parts that get embedded in concrete or are hidden and you need to dimension to a hole center or an edge of that embedded part in the upper-level assembly drawing. I assume you don't want to see every edge of that part as hidden. Just outline edges would be sufficient, the edges that wouldn't be hidden if the cement wasn't in front of it. Those are the drawings we're still struggling with in this regard.

After reviewing with several print consumers here we're updating our SOP on things like welded parts to avoid hidden lines in favor of better views. In other places where it cannot be solved with more view we're still left with either too many hidden edges or a lot of extra time hiding those unwanted lines.