This drives me nuts. Why is it so difficult to select items behind transparent surfaces / solids? I have "Select Through Transparency" enabled yet it seems to only work half the time and only with certain tools.
i.e. It doesn't work with the Measure tool.
Thanks, I was aware of select other but not the "hide" feature. That helps a bit.
Coming from Rhino I was expecting SW to be much more efficient but I keep running into these actions that seem to require 2-3 more clicks than they should. It really limits the ability to quickly build things.
Adding to what Eddy Alleman demonstrates; I frequently use the filters (mid-point, surface, edge, etc.) to focus when I'm measuring or creating mates. Yes, it is a work-around but it reduces the stress levels and helps keeping the work flow progressing.
Hey Dave,
Holding Shift cancels the "Select through transparency" in case you were not aware. Perhaps you were holding it in those times that it wasn't working as expected?
I always try every combination of alt, ctrl, shift etc. to see if something works and it rarely does. It's a very frustrating feature.
Are you working in a multi-body environment or an assembly environment? I work in assemblies and rarely have had issues occur with selection through transparency.
Are you working inside a drawing? Let's try and pin down what it is so perhaps you could report it.
Typically assembly or part file with multiple bodies.
I can tell you that select through doesn't work for me using the Measure tool.
At which level did you change the transparency ?
I don't know why, but if I change the transparency at the Solid (or Surface) body level, "Select through transparency" doesn't work.
Try changing the transparency at the face, feature, part or component level, it should probably work.
SW is filled with terrible user experience issues like what you're describing. Why should it matter where I turn on transparency? The feature isn't called "Enable Select Through Transparency...but only if you've followed the secret recipe"
Also, why when I select "Remove All Appearances" at the top level of a part file does it only remove SOME appearances?
I guess it's probably just a bug.
I know it's frustrating, but if you know the cause, you can deal with it.
Wouldn't it be a little consolation?
Actually, I submitted a request to "Top 10 List" a few years ago.
However, not many people seemed to understand it.
Unrecognized issues will not be fixed, so you should better to suggest any issues that you notice.
I'm not aware of the issue about "Remove All Appearances".
Hi Dave,
I never use "select through transparency" because it never felt consistent to me.
There is another way of selecting faces, which you can always use to select faces behind others "Select other". I will show how it works using some screenshots on a U shaped part:(I show the click location with a red cross)
When you RMB on a face and use "Select other", Solidworks makes a ray(line of infinite length from where you click normal to the screen.) and collects all the faces it pierces.
In my example we get the following popup, which makes it possible to select 3 faces (where the ray goes through).
In a simple case like this you can select the one you want.
But if there are much more faces there is another way of doing things: you can RMB on every face in the graphics area you don't want. In the screenshot below I clicked twice with RMB and that makes all the faces invisible except the one on the back. Remark the pointer with the mouse image(the eye says when you RMB it will change visibility)
Eddy