About Display Appearance Settings

Display appearance settings include the elements that compose the scene in the graphics area, such as visual style, ground plane, ground reflection, lighting style, and shadows.

You can control how a document appears in the graphics window when it opens, or you can use application-level options to open all documents with the same display appearance.

When you open non-migrated legacy documents, the default settings come from the Application Options appearance settings.

For new and migrated legacy documents, the display appearance settings also exist in the document. You can display documents differently without changing Application Options appearance settings.

Important: Changes to application and document settings do not change the current scene appearance. Document settings apply to that specific document when next opened. Thus, it is possible to change settings and forget having done so before next opening the document. Application options apply to any document opened after the settings are applied.

Access to Application Options and Document Settings is provided in the Tools tab, in the Options panel.

Depth Dimming

The following illustrations show some of the dimming effects you can set in the Display Appearance dialog to convey the depth of a model. (Click File Options Display tab. In Appearance, click Settings.)

Visual style is wireframe, and Depth Dimming set to Off.

Depth Dimming set to On.

Visual style is Shaded, and Depth Dimming set to Off.

Depth Dimming set to On.

Silhouettes

The following illustrations show the effects of enabling the Silhouettes setting in the Display Appearance dialog. (Click File Options Display tab. In Appearance, click Settings.)

Silhouettes for active component set to Off.

Silhouettes for active component set to On.

Silhouettes for inactive component set to Off.

Silhouettes for inactive component set to On.