Hide Table of Contents

Geometry Actor Properties

You can set properties for geometry actors in the Properties pane.

CategoryProperty
N/A
Name

Specifies the actor name. This name appears in the Collaboration or Assembly tree and is the default tooltip text.

Tooltip

Specifies the tooltip text that appears when you hover over the actor. The default is the actor name, but you can select a different property or meta-property, or type a text string. To type text, which itself can contain properties, select String and use the Tooltip string property.

Note: By default, labels attached to an actor display the actor's tooltip text. To change this behavior, modify the label's Text property.
Tooltip string

(Available when Tooltip is String.) Specifies the tooltip text. Type your text, optionally with property keywords. For geometry actors, click to display the Text pane, where you can type multiple lines of text and more easily embed properties.

See Text pane for details on property keywords and the Text pane.

Color
Specifies actor color. You can set color on both parts and assemblies. Setting color at the assembly level can simplify color management and improves performance because Composer manages one color property instead of many. Parts inherit from the highest defined assembly color.


Assembly A = Undefined Assembly B = Undefined Part colors are displayed.


Assembly A = Undefined Assembly B = Red Part colors overridden by Assembly B.


Assembly A = Green Assembly B = Red Part colors overridden by Assembly A.
After specifying the actor color, if a color is inherited from the assembly, a message appears. Click Clear to clear the inherited color (and therefore, use the specified color), or click Cancel to keep using the inherited color.
Note: You can choose to make the Clear behavior the default one by selecting the Don't ask this question again check box.
To specify no assembly color, click Undefined on the color palette.
Notes:
  • Color interpolation is not performed when animating assembly actors with undefined color. When creating color property keys for assemblies, ensure that you specify colors. Composer imports assembly-level color for the following formats: SOLIDWORKS and 3DXML.
  • Composer does not support SOLIDWORKS occurrence (non-direct child) color and visibility.
Opacity
Specifies actor opacity, from 0 (transparent) to 255 (solid). Part and assembly opacities are cumulative. Composer imports assembly-level opacity for the following formats: SOLIDWORKS and 3DXML.
Note: When a part is on top of another one, depending on the camera's orientation, the color of both parts does not blend and any part may appear as being on top of the other one, in an unsystematic manner. Therefore, the rendering is not always as expected.

Shininess
Specifies how reflective the actor is.
Emission

Specifies the intensity of reflected light.





Low emission High emission

BOM ID
Specifies the bill of materials (BOM) identifier as appears in callouts. You can assign BOM IDs automatically from the BOM workshop.
Texture
Show
(Not available for all Environment effect - Type values.) Applies a texture to the actor.
Map path

Specifies the file path of the texture image.

Transparency

Makes the texture image transparent so actors below it are visible.

Projection mode
Specifies how the texture image is projected onto the actor:
  • Planar - Projects the texture along a plane axis.
  • Cylindrical - Projects the texture from a virtual cylinder around the actor inward toward the cylinder center axis.
  • Spherical - Projects the texture from a virtual sphere around the actor inward toward the sphere center.
  • Imported texture - The texture is from the original CAD file. For details, see Import textures in (Default) Document Properties - Input.
    Note: Changing the projection mode loses the imported texture.
Blending (modulate)

Mixes the color and transparency of the texture with those of the textured actors. They are affected by the lighting of the scene. When disabled, the texture is not affected by the actor material or scene lighting.





Disabled Enabled

Mosaic (repeat)

Repeats the texture image to fill the available space.





Disabled Enabled

Ratio height/width

Stretches the image, changing its aspect ratio.

Scale

Specifies the displayed image size.

Environment effect
Type
Applies a material texture:
  • None (no environment effect)
  • Chromic
  • Metal
  • Metal brushed
  • Plastic
  • Glass
  • Glass plastic
  • Chromic II (with color)
  • Gold
  • Aluminum
  • Satin
Note: Selecting Gold, Satin, Aluminum, Glass or Chromic disables the Color, Shininess and Emission properties from the Properties pane.
Map path

Specifies the file path of the texture image.

Outline
Width

Specifies the width, in points, of actor outlines (sharp edges, construction edges, and smart outlines).





Width = 1 Color = black Width = 3 Color = red

Color
(Available when Same outline color for all actors (Document Properties - Viewport) is selected.) Specifies the color of actor outlines (sharp edges, construction edges, and smart outlines). When Same outline color for all actors is cleared, outlines are based on actor colors.
Minimum angle

Specifies the minimum angle between two face planes that defines a sharp-edge outline. Smaller values produce more lines.





5 100
Tip: The Minimum angle property on the [Default] Document Properties - Viewport page defines the default value for all actors.

Animation
Path

Specifies the type of animation path between location keys:

  • Linear - Creates straight paths.
  • Custom - Creates configurable curved paths (Bézier curves). To change the path shape, drag the blue anchors.
  • Smooth - Creates curved paths (cubic Hermite splines). Path, rotation, and speed are optimized to produce smooth animations. For best results, define at least four keys because the path at any point is calculated using the two preceding and the two following keys.






LinearCustomSmooth

Time function
Specifies how transformations are applied during a time period:
  • Linear - Applies transformations uniformly.
  • Sine - Applies transformations nonlinearly. For example, an actor moves more slowly at the beginning and end of a path than in the middle.
Kinematic link
Link type
Specifies the kinematic link type:
  • Free - Specifies no kinematic link. The actor can move freely.
  • Pivot - Allows rotation in one direction as specified by Link axis.
  • Spherical - Allows rotation in all directions.
  • Linear - Allows translation along the Link axis.
  • Rigid - Disables all actor transformations.
Link axis (in parent)
(Available when Link type is Pivot or Linear.) Specifies the free axis.
Limited joints
(Available when Link type is Pivot, Spherical, or Linear.) Limits the range of motion.
Rxmin / Rxmax / Rymin / Rymax / Rzmin / Rzmax / Xmin / Xmax
(Available when Limited joints is selected.) Specifies range-of-motion limits.
Note: For Pivot and Spherical, Rxmin / Rxmax / Rymin / Rymax / Rzmin / Rzmax values must be included within the following range: -180 degrees to 180 degrees.
Geometry
Area / Volume
Specifies geometry information read from CAD. These values have no effect on Composer geometry with the following exception: changing area or volume of pipe geometry affects measurement collaborative actors.
Bounding box volume
(Read-only.) Specifies the bounding box volume for the actor.
Type
Specifies the geometry type. Composer uses geometry types to determine certain actor behaviors. For example, only Solid actors can have cutting-plane capping. Possible values are:
  • Undefined
  • Solid
  • Face
  • Pipe
  • Point
  • Curve
  • Construction geometry (fta)
Scale X / Scale Y / Scale Z
Changes the actor size by the specified scaling value. Specify 1.0 for the default size (no scaling).
Custom rendering (Available when Render > Mode > Mode > Custom is selected)
Priority

Sets the priority of the rendering layer. Actors with higher priority are displayed above lower priority actors. The priority affects actors in the 3D scene and in vector output. In the following example, a priority of 1 is applied to the red baseplate.





Priority=0Priority=1
Note: Ghosted actors with high priority can create unexpected effects, such as holes through parts.

Opacity
Sets the opacity of the rendering layer to show more or less of layers below with higher priorities. For example, if Layer1 is above Layer2 but Layer1 has lower priority, the visibility of Layer2 is controlled by the opacity of Layer1.
Rendering

Sets the rendering mode of the rendering layer:

  • Smooth
  • Smooth outline
  • Technical
  • Flat technical
  • Silhouette
In the following example, Silhouette is applied to the red baseplate:




SmoothSilhouette

Visible lines style for Technical Illustration

Specifies the line style for visible lines in vector output.



Gear A: Solid visible lines Gear B: Dashed visible lines

Hidden lines style for Technical Illustration

Specifies the line style for hidden lines in vector output.



Gears A & B: Solid visible lines Gear B: Dashed hidden lines
Note: Gear B hidden lines are visible because its rendering layer has higher Priority than Gear A.

Event
Pulse

Specifies the rate at which the actor flashes, indicating an event is defined:

  • None - No flashing.
  • 200 ms - Flashes every 200 milliseconds.
  • 400 ms - Flashes every 400 milliseconds.
  • 800 ms - Flashes every 800 milliseconds.

Notes:
  • Composer pulses all actors in the scene at the same rate using the most recently set value.
  • In animations, defining a pulse key pauses the animation until the user clicks the actor. Use the Event > Link property to define the action when clicking the actor. If Link is not defined, the actor flashes only when Design Mode (status bar) is cleared.

Pulse Color

(Available when Pulse is not None.) Specifies the flashing color.

Link

Defines the action performed when a user clicks an actor or hotspot in the viewport or in vector image output (see the Technical Illustration - Hotspots tab).

To create an event link:

  1. Click in the Link field and then click .
  2. In the Select a Link dialog box, select a link type in the URL field, specify an appropriate target for that type, and then click OK.

    See Select a Link.

  3. To test the event in the viewport, disable Design Mode (status bar) and then click the actor or hotspot.
Pack linked resource

(Available when the Link property specifies a file:// URL.) Includes the linked file as part of the Composer document. To omit the file, clear this property and ensure that recipients of the document have the linked file in the same absolute path.

Hatching (Available when a Hatch by actor cutting plane property is selected)
Angle
Specifies the rotation angle of hatch lines.
Color
Specifies the color of hatch lines.
Hatch
Specifies the spacing between hatch lines. To turn off hatching, specify 0.
Thickness
Specifies the thickness of hatch lines.


Provide feedback on this topic

SOLIDWORKS welcomes your feedback concerning the presentation, accuracy, and thoroughness of the documentation. Use the form below to send your comments and suggestions about this topic directly to our documentation team. The documentation team cannot answer technical support questions. Click here for information about technical support.

* Required

 
*Email:  
Subject:   Feedback on Help Topics
Page:   Geometry Actor Properties
*Comment:  
*   I acknowledge I have read and I hereby accept the privacy policy under which my Personal Data will be used by Dassault Systèmes

Print Topic

Select the scope of content to print:




x

We have detected you are using a browser version older than Internet Explorer 7. For optimized display, we suggest upgrading your browser to Internet Explorer 7 or newer.

 Never show this message again
x

Web Help Content Version: SOLIDWORKS Composer 2024 SP05

To disable Web help from within SOLIDWORKS and use local help instead, click Help > Use SOLIDWORKS Web Help.

To report problems encountered with the Web help interface and search, contact your local support representative. To provide feedback on individual help topics, use the “Feedback on this topic” link on the individual topic page.