In this image I show how it would look like. I would like to be able to assign different colors or switching of visibility of layers by choice without having to explode the block and still being able to modify geometry for all blocks in one action of blockedit.
Cheers!
When you set geometry material to Use Object Parent or Display Color to By Parent you have the possibility of using the material or display color of the layer on which the block instance resides. This means you can control with one color or material, not multiple.
In this example the circle Display Color has been set to By Parent. The right block instance is on Layer 04
ByParentExample.3dm (2.8 MB)
Hello!
The only thing missing here is: the block’s children should be able to also inherit their block parent’s layer.
(Has been wished before)
Thanks!
If the children are set to By Parent then it should just work, including for children that are blocks themselves.
Try checking the dropdowns on display color, linetype, print color and print width. You have an option there.
I know, thanks, but that’s beside the point. It can be desirable to keep a block and it’s children on separate layers (to e.g. toggle certain block components), but on the other hand to just have the children share the same layer as their block parent, for simplicity.
(It’s an AutoCAD feature. Put an object inside a block on layer 0, and it inherits the block’s properties.)
You could put the children on the same layer as the parent at first, but when the block is moved to another layer, the children would still stick to the ‘old’ layer. Not if they inherit the parent layer.
Does that make sense?
Then set to By Layer.
You can see in my example that the block on the left has the rectangle black, which is because the rectangle was originally created on the default layer, which has color set to black. If you change the layer color to say red it should change to red.
Here I change the default layer color to white. The block instance is on layer 4 and the circle is set to By Parent. The block instance display color is set to By Layer
Thanks, but what I’m talking about is setting the layer(!) of a block child to “ByParent”. That’s not possible, is it.
It’s indeed possible to set displaycolor, linetype, etc. to “ByParent”.
You can’t change the layer of geometry inside blocks like that. But instead set it to By Parent and where-ever the block instance is you get those properties. You will just have to set all the properties to by parent for geometry inside the block. It will effectively do what you want.
And no, there is no shortcut I know of.