How To Change Color of Parts Imported from AutoCAD

[Bill Tillman]

I had great success importing parts from AutoCAD thanks to JD and a few others. The trouble is when I completed the parts in AutoCAD I left them with a color of white which was a nice greyish color. Now that the parts have been placed in the assembly in Inventor they are all jet black. Looks kinda cool but it makes it very hard to see surfaces and other features in the extrusions. I looked up changing the colors and it said to right-click on the part and choose properties. But all I get is iProperties and that doesn't have anything about colors in it.

 

How can I get a nice color which looks like mill finish aluminum? I don't want to apply materials or anything just yet. I would just like to get the color of the parts a bright tone which can easier be seen.

 

Aha, spoke to soon. I found the color palette at the top hidden above the ribbon. Now I almost own this assembly.

[JD Mather]

.... Now I almost own this assembly.

 

Be aware that changing the color at the assembly level does not change the color at the part level (this might be fine in your case).

 

To change at the part level - you can do as you found

or

right click on the top node of the part in the browser and select Properties

or

you can change an individual feature color by right clicking on the feature in the browser and selecting Properties

or

you can change an individual face by right clicking on the face in the graphics window and selecting Properties.

[Bill Tillman]

You know I also found another interesting fact which they don't teach us Americans (Imperial) in Inventor Flight Training schools. When an American sets up Inventor we typically setup Imperial dimensions. But let's say you're doing a project for some friends in Canada and it's metric. One would think by opening a Assembly (Std mm) file in the metric tab all would be fine. But as I found last night while trying to add some holes to one of the extrusions, when you start a new sketch and try to draw a line which is 2.5 mm long, you will get a line that's 2.5 inches long. I thought I was screwed until I found you can override this when entering the dimension by placing mm after the digits. Whew, thought I was going to have to start this one over again.

 

Thanks again for all the advice. The project is getting done, albeit slower than molasses in January (in the northern hemisphere that is...). When you're working internationally you've got to remember these kinds of things.

[JD Mather]

One would think by opening a Assembly (Std mm) file in the metric tab all would be fine. ..

 

Parts and assemblies are different. You can have an inch part in a metric assembly.

The cool thing is Inventor is units aware. You can do things like 1"+10mm in a dimension. This might be important when, for example, adding a metric motor to an old inch machine. And the really cool thing is Inventor remembers the equation, so a year from now if you are trying to understand where that "strange" dimension came from - just edit the dimension and there is the equation, ah - it was an inch and metric addition. Try that in that other MCAD SoftWare.

 

To change the units of a part (or assembly or drawing) go to Tools>Document Settings>Units. Inventor will do the conversion for you and show you the correct dimensions.