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Why the blue feather?

Question asked by Don Aldridge on Oct 2, 2009
Latest reply on Jun 22, 2010 by Brian Hoerner

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Yesterday I did an assembly drawing and all looked good, I even printed it and it was nice and clear. This afternoon I opened the assembly and every sub assembly has a blue feather and the main assembly is "fuzzy" looking. A search tells me the blue feather means things are suppressed. OK, but why and how and what do I need to do to un suppress things? I found where I had the option of suppress or resolved and clicked resolved on all the parts in one of the sub assemblies, the feather disappeared until I opened the main assembly again and then the feathers came back.

What gives? Why OK yesterday but bad today? Just because it's Friday maybe?

Don

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Josh Brady Oct 2, 2009 3:17 PM
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Not suppressed, just lightweight.

Right-Click on the top-level in the design tree of the assembly and choose "set lightweight to resolved".
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Jerry Steiger Oct 2, 2009 3:50 PM
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Don,

It could possibly be a "large assembly mode" issue (a Large Assembly might not display edges in shaded mode). Check to see the settings in Tools/Options/System Options/Assemblies. It could also be your settings under Tools/Options/System Options/Performance in the Assemblies block. Perhaps "Automatically load components lightweight" got checked or "Always resolve sub-assemblies" got unchecked or the "Resolve lightweight components" setting got changed.

Jerry Steiger
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Mauricio Martinez-Saez Oct 2, 2009 7:56 PM
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Blue feather.... maybe because the bird was blue...

Realy what hapen is that your main assembly is opening "ligthweigth", change your parameters for openning "large assemblies" or just uncheck the ligthweight checkmark when openning the file.

If you see a red feather then for sure is another issue and the bird was not blue.
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David Paulson Oct 2, 2009 10:37 PM
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Three responses and all of them seem to be correct. This Forum is where all knowledge of SolidWorks resides. I think that even SolidWorks posts to this forum secretly to resolve their software issues..... LOL. But I do get the Red Feather when I drink tooooooo much Tequilla and then try to interface with SW.
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John Lhuillier Oct 3, 2009 1:02 PM
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Another possiblitly is in 2009 up until either SP3 or SP4 if you opened up a drawing first and then saved it, Solidworks would change everything in that file to lightweight when opening it up. Then if saved, the next time you opened up the assembly file, it would load everything lightweight. They fixed this in one of the service packs to make this an option to load the drawings lightweight like it had been in all previous versions.
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Harold Brunt Oct 6, 2009 7:47 AM
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Aside from the lightwieght thing, perhaps someone at SW is a fan of Richard Bach's "Illusions"....
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- Don Aldridge @ Harold Brunt on Oct 6, 2009 11:55 AM
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  Yes the blue feather means lightweight, not supressed, in the minute it took me to look it up and come over here to type my question my simple little mind got things screwed up.
  
  Somehow the load assemblies lightweight box got checked, I wish I could say unchecking the box fixed everything but it didn't. I managed to get rid of all the blue feathers but the assembly was still fuzzy. After more searching I found under views that the shaded option was selected instead of shaded with edges. Selecting sheaded with edges put things back the way they were.
  
  So this all leads me to another question. Is there a way to "lock" a drawing or file so no one but me can make changes? I do all the drawings here but there are two others who use Solid Works for technical information on our parts. This isn't the first time things have got jacked around and no one knows how. And yes, it could just as well been something I did but still it would be nice to lock a finished part so it couldn't be altered. Of coarse it would need to be un locked for possible future changes.
  
  We are using Solid Works 2008 5.0
  
  Thanks
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  - Anna Wood @ Don Aldridge on Oct 6, 2009 11:58 AM
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    Read only access to your files for the technical people would lock the files. PDM systems also go a long way to curing your problem as well.
    
    Cheers,
    
    Anna
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  - Kelvin Lamport @ Don Aldridge on Oct 6, 2009 12:00 PM
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    I assume you are not using a PDM system, so setting the permissions in Windows would be the next best thing.
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1-FOJZCQ Oct 12, 2009 2:52 AM
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We have all the same problem here that when opening a drawing of an assembly the assembly's parts are in lightweight mode.
No matter how we set the settings in large assembly mode or open parts in lightweight. If we open the assembly from start the parts are all resolved.
We have SP 2.1 and I suppose this is a bug in SolidWorks.
To work in lightweight mode when using a TDM system is hazardous. Files are not always opened and updated properly.
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- Harold Brunt @ 1-FOJZCQ on Oct 12, 2009 7:18 AM
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  This is addressed in SP4.0. You can refer to this thread for more (prior) discussion:
  
  https://forum.solidworks.com/message/103423#103423
  
  I suggest downloading and installing the new SP.
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Chandler Clark Jun 22, 2010 4:22 PM
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My issue was very simialr to this one and I had the blue feathers and your suggestion on how to turn them off by rt clicking on the assembly in the feature tree and selecting set resolve to took care of that portion of the issue but I am also seeing hidden lines in full view as if every thing is partially transparent. I had selected individual items and checked thier colir/material and they are not set to transparent. I also am aware of how to select the correct dispaly stlye. Currently the solid model with the lines is selected. So why are these hidden lines still showing up?
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- Brian Hoerner @ Chandler Clark on Jun 22, 2010 4:32 PM
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  Would you mind posting a screen shot to help us get a better view of your problem?
  
  Thanks,
  Brian
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