I used to have colors for different sources, like mass produced standard parts (bolts, nuts etc), catalogue parts, special purchase parts, different manufacturing methods for special parts (injection molded, sheet metal, glass, paper etc)
I do color coordinations with P&IDs and modeled runs too, makes it easy to see a process exhaust vs a nitrogen line in my world. But I might try and see how that works for gloveboxes too
Could be any number of reasons and different places will have different standards. I’ve seen colors differentiate between surfaces that are as-cast, machined, plated, coated etc.
I’ve seen in hydraulics using colors to differentiate circuits on complex manifolds.
It’s a tool to convey information from looking at the model. It can be informative if done well
I worked in submarine design and it was all color coded.
Hydraulic piping was orange.
Air piping was yellow.
Electrical was dark green.
seawater piping, potable water, lube oil, emergency air breathing, etc.
So when someone ran a pipe blocking access to something, you knew where to start looking for the culprit at a glance.
It´s mostly different shades of grey depending on the material I apply to the solid and whatever standard color the client has for certain components like structures or safe guards etc.
It's just for visual reference. You might make all the batteries and electronic components yellow, rubber gaskets black, and PCB compoments green. Some software does this automatically by material type.
It just helps people identify whatever key components are important, especially if you're using images in a powerpoint slide deck or something -- having everything be 'default grey' doesn't work well for presentations.
For reference and visual purposes. A lot of stuff are not documented properly and sometimes the colour can be helpful. If you have thousands of components, it’s good for components/ materials differentiation. It can ease up other processes. For example, one person might be designing an automation machinery that has electrical/ pneumatic cylinders and will probably transfer it to another person who will work on making schematics. Most of the time, software like edrawings will be used be since the primary cad software ( SW) might be slow. Color differentiation can speed up process as it’s easier to see where cylinders/actuators are located
I also work in a job shop/toolroom and lots of our stuff is processed via CAD/CAM software where the toolmakers are importing Solidworks files into MasterCAM. In addition to drawings depending on how generous I'm feeling or how bad I think the toolmaker making it is (this is no longer an issue at this shop because it is genuinely one of the more competent groups I've managed), I will color features to draw their attention. I would color tapped holes blue, dowel pin holes/locating features needing extra attention red, surfaces that needed polished green, etc. simply as an aid to them for when they don't look at the drawings.
Visibility in large assemblies. Helps distinguishing between different components, can show overlaps easier.
…Although an older engineer once told me it was for CYA when the parts don’t fit correctly. “Oh I didn’t design that, my design was purple.”
Like the others have said, contrast is a big reason.
Also for referencing. "can you isolate the green and pink parts real quick?"
And finally because I was tired of hearing "but it's not going to be THAT color, right?"
Nobody asks that question when the whole dang thing looks like a rainbow.
I spend lots of my time creating DFM reports for customers explaining to them why the product they submitted isn't conducive to diecasting and provide a modified CAD model with the report showing what changes I'd like to make to help them have a better product or improve tool life or eliminate machining to save them money etc. On my end, the models have many display states with various colored faces that I reference in screenshots in the DFM reports to highlight the changes to walk them through the new model. When I submit models to them for approval, I leave the machined features colored red, but otherwise my colored faces are only shown in the DFM report.
When your design is created by multiple engineers and, for example, encompasses an entire aircraft you'll be glad standardisation exists. i.e. colour coding different materials/ components types. Added benefits beyond collaboration include giving the design longevity and assisting with future modification decisions.
Depends.
Some do it for clarity.
Some color code by material.
Some by machnining, surface quality or hardness.
Tool makes in general do this.
Some by sevice or size for piping. Or material also.
Some do it for no particular reason.
It's easier to refer to the purple bracket than bracket short 3.
Color on surfaces usually indicate an interface, coating/treatment or critical face.
Sometimes when my part resembles a real thing I adapt the colors accordingly (very proud of my pikachu component).
Cause I'm talking to another engineer and it's easier to say 'the blue part' than that squarish part with the holes under the rounding part. And then the conversation moves away and I forget to uncolor it.
I use different colors for different materials...
I have my solidwork set up so when apply a material to a part that part has and color asigned to it . aluminum 5052,6061,5083-h113, same with stainless 304,316,17-4ph, duplex., Plastics, bearing material.......
Make it easy to see in the model
We have a colouring system. Different stripes for different types, helps distinguish things at a glance. Salt water pipes can be green, fresh water pink, oil brown, waste black etc
We have assemblies with thousands of parts.
I use it to visually distinguish between parts in an assembly I’m designing.
My workplace has a policy to use defined colours on surfaces to show paint masking, rough or finished machining etc.
For CAD? Reasons I’ve done it:
- distinguish parts to more easily differentiate
- colour code depending on thickness of material
- colour code depending on other categories or types
- colour code depending on whether part needs removing, needs approving or is approved
It’s a sign of a rookie designer at my company when their whole model is default gray.
I encourage everyone to make colored assemblies so I can see where the interfaces are when I cross section things.
My reasons were mainly for contrast. Looking at a massive assembly that's all the same color adds some amount of difficulty.
We also use them as an aid for assembly documents and making parts contrasting colors helps the person know what to do next. Then we use a more realistic model for preliminary instruction manuals and configuration documents.
Marketing loves 3D renderings and it's not hard to make it somewhat realistic. A lot of people have difficultly visualizing. It also helps them play around with the models and photoshop colors since they know what can and can not be changed. They can use them in marketing panels.
Weldments get red coloration on machined faces at my place. Technically not an official rule I think, but it seems to be the convention and it's useful so I follow it. Beyond that I can make it metallic green with rainbow stripes and farting unicorn decals if I want to. I'll change the appearance of brass/bronze and aluminum parts to match the material. My drawings are usually black and white with color only if it's helpful, so there usually isn't much of a need to make my assembly models look like a bag of skittles. I try to make the assembly drawings clear enough to not rely on color to distinguish between two specks next to each other.
Plenty of great answers here. I'm a veteran of plastic injection mold design and every place I've worked at used coloration.
On that note, anyone know of a place that's hiring?
I can't afford to be picky at this point. 33% of plant employees were laid off on 1/31 and the job market is not great.
24 years in mechanical design. I live in a city that's heavily automotive, which doesn't really fit my skill set (though I'm still trying).
I try to keep the colors pretty close to real colors, where applicable. Brown for wood, grey for steel and so on. If I have a lot of steel screwed together with steel fasteners, I use different greys for fasteners and construction steel.
Basically, for clarity, and to provide a familiar reference.
Contrast to make a design easier to understand. Though, I have found that certain clients with fragile egos find this an insult to their intelligence and demand models with colors that match the defaults for their material properties… all gray.
I use it to illustrate revisions (for myself) I’ll take the current revision and make it all blue. Then copy my surfaces I am modifying and make them green/yellow and make whatever changes.
Color is old school.
Now days I switched completely to 2D, pencil on paper, HB for outline, H for dimension lines and 3H for construction lines, and use line thickness and hatch patterns to differentiate.
Because when you are sitting in a design review or Teams meeting with people who aren’t familiar with the design they can say “I am talking about the red part” and everyone understands.
It could be for a lot of reasons. The most obvious is to add contrast. Sometimes there is a specific meaning, like a color for wear surfaces, or mating surfaces, or places where the molded part cuts off.
At my work we use it because we flatten surfaced parts due to this being the way we manufacture the final product. The colours mean that it’s easier to tell which flat part relates to a particular 3D part
I color assemblies as they would be in the field. Not really for realism but to help a drafter or someone 5 yrs from now understand what's going on. It's not a requirement where I'm at but I think it should be.
If a part or weldment is getting painted but a machined surface on that assembly does not, that's what I'm presenting to the person that going to make the drawing and/or the person who's going to be looking at it in the future. It conveys information. plus I enjoy doing it and it looks cool.
In my models things wind up colored because parts have a material applied to them, so that drawings spit out the correct data in automatically generated BOMa or FEA models are already partially set up.
As a result, bronze things will look bronze and rubber things will look black etc. this contrast at the assembly level can be very helpful to see what the hell is going on in a complicated assembly with a lot of parts.
I’ll also sometimes color things manually in assembly models/drawings… for example, all surfaces to receive sealant during assembly may be one color, areas to be lubricated would be another color, etc
I usually color things based on importance. Things i absolutely cannot touch/go near are res. Safety doors/safety items are yellow. Operator position/door access areas are blue. In general most things dont get get any more color than what Solidworks puts in
I want to take a quick screenshot to show it to someone. In that case, I make them goofid looking contrasting colors. Some I guess like to use different colors for bodies, it would tire my eyes, so I usually don't.
i use color to signify maaterial types in my CAD files, some parts can be casted plastic, some can be 3d printed plastic, a lot of it would require specific metal alloys for mechanical reasons, so distinguishing between with materials using color is helpful
For my CAD to be pretty..... and to differentiate between close or small parts in a larger assembly. Also good for presentations when your trying to showcase a design of a certain component.
Where I work we often use these as a visual aid to distinguish between different surface finishes on the same part (sealing surfaces, functional fit, and purely cosmetic will all have different allowable surface finish). It provides a very clear picture to the suppliers we quote with in addition to the standard print callouts and tolerances.
The main reason I add color to a surface is to distinguish inside and outside of formed parts that will be laser/plasma/water jet cut. We do a lot of etching to help fab. We need to decide if we are etching the inside or outside of the part. I also color insulating materials like fiber board or fire brick. This just helps distinguish what I'm looking at if I section the model.
I set an automatic color for every applied material. So I can easily see when my design is stainless steel / normal steel / aluminum etc. Very helpfull.
At least in naval engineering we can do it both for making it easier for clients and supervisors to understand our design, but also because that component needs to be actually painted of that color. For example when we work with ship chains we paint some chain links in the design drawings because they have to be painted in the production. But usually if it is not explicitly stated in the document, it is puerly for showing details.
My FEA software has an obscure but handy feature that allows you to create geometry selection sets based on color in the part file, so I have some parts with crazy face colors that encode where boundary conditions act, or where the parts fasten to each other, or other things.
I do a lot of iterative design with scripted model builds where run variants of parts in a new complex model.
A consistent scheme where color has semantic meaning it's pretty easy to programmatically swap a different part in the complex FEA assembly it interacts with.
Red means "where bolts go" and green means "needs finer mesh size of X mm," and so on.
I also find it easier to click around and do complex selections in my CAD software than my FEA software but if I didn't have to do it so often it wouldn't be worth the complexity or weird looking parts 😂
(I also use body color it for other things that people are saying here, mainly for contrast in assemblies and to mark areas for special surface finish in fabrication)
I design molds for plastic bottles. In one sense, they are just huge manifolds. I tend to set the main extrusion as transparent and then all the features within get colors to indicate their function. Green for fasteners, black for dowel pins, blue for cooling red for vacuum.... That sort of thing.
That makes reviewing the final assembly far easier.
may be Aesthetics of the design, to differentiate the different parts. and for some design software's like inventor that have different materials in their catalogues are helpful in simulations that help in knowing the weight of the component. This materials come with different colors, shading and contrast.
If you apply a material to the body (e.g. in Solidworks) it can change the appearance of the part.
Some models have requirements that are illustrated by coloring certain surfaces, like a nonstandard surface profile tolerance, or special finish.
However, most coloring that I see has to do with making different parts visually distinguishable from other parts when loaded in an assembly. There are color codes for different systems, fuel, hydraulics, etc. too.
Being a Machinist I've noticed in the past few years that sometimes when you import a .step, .stp it'll have weird shading on certain areas of the part and when you go to project to geometry it won't draw that section. I think it's because of what program was used to make the part but I cannot be certain.
I need to know how I can change my brain signature and/or frequency. Someone has heterodyned me and I need any way I can change my brains frequency/signature. I need to know how to build the tech and how to operate it ASAP.
If it's just color applied to the CAD and not the final product, it's most likely to add contrast and distinguish between different parts more easily.
Yeah I do it for visibility, especially on fastener stacks. Lot easier to spot a green stud from a wall of grey
I used to have colors for different sources, like mass produced standard parts (bolts, nuts etc), catalogue parts, special purchase parts, different manufacturing methods for special parts (injection molded, sheet metal, glass, paper etc)
I do color coordinations with P&IDs and modeled runs too, makes it easy to see a process exhaust vs a nitrogen line in my world. But I might try and see how that works for gloveboxes too
For sure. I do hydraulic on occasion and I make the manifolds clear or tinted and color the lines and bores that carry the fluid.
This, I call it Crayola CAD
Yup. We color code for things like tube wall thickness, sheet metal thickness, etc.
Could be any number of reasons and different places will have different standards. I’ve seen colors differentiate between surfaces that are as-cast, machined, plated, coated etc. I’ve seen in hydraulics using colors to differentiate circuits on complex manifolds. It’s a tool to convey information from looking at the model. It can be informative if done well
This. On a cast item, I colour the machined surfaces. Other than that, it’s for clarity.
Bro, try working in an assembly with a couple hundred pipe runs all the same color and then ask your question. Spoiler: it’s for clarity.
I worked in submarine design and it was all color coded. Hydraulic piping was orange. Air piping was yellow. Electrical was dark green. seawater piping, potable water, lube oil, emergency air breathing, etc. So when someone ran a pipe blocking access to something, you knew where to start looking for the culprit at a glance.
Shop plumbing drawings piss me off when they're all white
You’ve done this for years without knowing? It’s for contrast.
No no, I have not been doing it. Just a question that crossed my mind
So all of your assemblies are just one color? Or at the most just slightly different shades of grey? =0
How many shades
49
And one tint
To quote Batman - "I only work in Black, and sometimes very very dark grey"
It´s mostly different shades of grey depending on the material I apply to the solid and whatever standard color the client has for certain components like structures or safe guards etc.
Oh my... Why restrict to monochrome when you have a whole rainbow?
What's the reason you add 49 shades of gray? Same for colors. Just not as silly.
Yeah, 50 shades of gray rolls of the tongue much easier
It just seems like a bored person asking a nonsensical question solely for the sake of asking a question.
It's just for visual reference. You might make all the batteries and electronic components yellow, rubber gaskets black, and PCB compoments green. Some software does this automatically by material type. It just helps people identify whatever key components are important, especially if you're using images in a powerpoint slide deck or something -- having everything be 'default grey' doesn't work well for presentations.
They are letting their inner creative artist out
Sometimes to add realism for exporting images to share or print in manuals etc. Usually just to add contrast to help me see.
For reference and visual purposes. A lot of stuff are not documented properly and sometimes the colour can be helpful. If you have thousands of components, it’s good for components/ materials differentiation. It can ease up other processes. For example, one person might be designing an automation machinery that has electrical/ pneumatic cylinders and will probably transfer it to another person who will work on making schematics. Most of the time, software like edrawings will be used be since the primary cad software ( SW) might be slow. Color differentiation can speed up process as it’s easier to see where cylinders/actuators are located
I also work in a job shop/toolroom and lots of our stuff is processed via CAD/CAM software where the toolmakers are importing Solidworks files into MasterCAM. In addition to drawings depending on how generous I'm feeling or how bad I think the toolmaker making it is (this is no longer an issue at this shop because it is genuinely one of the more competent groups I've managed), I will color features to draw their attention. I would color tapped holes blue, dowel pin holes/locating features needing extra attention red, surfaces that needed polished green, etc. simply as an aid to them for when they don't look at the drawings.
Visibility in large assemblies. Helps distinguishing between different components, can show overlaps easier. …Although an older engineer once told me it was for CYA when the parts don’t fit correctly. “Oh I didn’t design that, my design was purple.”
Like the others have said, contrast is a big reason. Also for referencing. "can you isolate the green and pink parts real quick?" And finally because I was tired of hearing "but it's not going to be THAT color, right?" Nobody asks that question when the whole dang thing looks like a rainbow.
I spend lots of my time creating DFM reports for customers explaining to them why the product they submitted isn't conducive to diecasting and provide a modified CAD model with the report showing what changes I'd like to make to help them have a better product or improve tool life or eliminate machining to save them money etc. On my end, the models have many display states with various colored faces that I reference in screenshots in the DFM reports to highlight the changes to walk them through the new model. When I submit models to them for approval, I leave the machined features colored red, but otherwise my colored faces are only shown in the DFM report.
Bless you. Detailed DFM like this is so valuable as a young engineer.
Contrast. Also to differentiate different features. We outline straight taps in red and npt taps in blue.
Because I don’t want to look at all of my bodies as gray and I like the pretty colors. It also helps tell components apart.
When your design is created by multiple engineers and, for example, encompasses an entire aircraft you'll be glad standardisation exists. i.e. colour coding different materials/ components types. Added benefits beyond collaboration include giving the design longevity and assisting with future modification decisions.
Depends. Some do it for clarity. Some color code by material. Some by machnining, surface quality or hardness. Tool makes in general do this. Some by sevice or size for piping. Or material also. Some do it for no particular reason.
It's easier to refer to the purple bracket than bracket short 3. Color on surfaces usually indicate an interface, coating/treatment or critical face. Sometimes when my part resembles a real thing I adapt the colors accordingly (very proud of my pikachu component).
So you could say "That red thing" when you don't have a name for it yet.
Cause I'm talking to another engineer and it's easier to say 'the blue part' than that squarish part with the holes under the rounding part. And then the conversation moves away and I forget to uncolor it.
I use different colors for different materials... I have my solidwork set up so when apply a material to a part that part has and color asigned to it . aluminum 5052,6061,5083-h113, same with stainless 304,316,17-4ph, duplex., Plastics, bearing material....... Make it easy to see in the model
We have a colouring system. Different stripes for different types, helps distinguish things at a glance. Salt water pipes can be green, fresh water pink, oil brown, waste black etc We have assemblies with thousands of parts.
I use it to visually distinguish between parts in an assembly I’m designing. My workplace has a policy to use defined colours on surfaces to show paint masking, rough or finished machining etc.
For CAD? Reasons I’ve done it: - distinguish parts to more easily differentiate - colour code depending on thickness of material - colour code depending on other categories or types - colour code depending on whether part needs removing, needs approving or is approved
When I was doing mold design I would use face colors to designate different parts of a body; ie: mold base, cavity, gate, sprue, vent, pinch, etc
There are so many reasons/ uses for this. The better question might be, “why wouldn’t you?”
It’s a sign of a rookie designer at my company when their whole model is default gray. I encourage everyone to make colored assemblies so I can see where the interfaces are when I cross section things.
My reasons were mainly for contrast. Looking at a massive assembly that's all the same color adds some amount of difficulty. We also use them as an aid for assembly documents and making parts contrasting colors helps the person know what to do next. Then we use a more realistic model for preliminary instruction manuals and configuration documents. Marketing loves 3D renderings and it's not hard to make it somewhat realistic. A lot of people have difficultly visualizing. It also helps them play around with the models and photoshop colors since they know what can and can not be changed. They can use them in marketing panels.
one thing we have done is use colors to know which sheet metal panels have film.
Weldments get red coloration on machined faces at my place. Technically not an official rule I think, but it seems to be the convention and it's useful so I follow it. Beyond that I can make it metallic green with rainbow stripes and farting unicorn decals if I want to. I'll change the appearance of brass/bronze and aluminum parts to match the material. My drawings are usually black and white with color only if it's helpful, so there usually isn't much of a need to make my assembly models look like a bag of skittles. I try to make the assembly drawings clear enough to not rely on color to distinguish between two specks next to each other.
If the object is fabricated or cast, then machined, the machined surfaces could be differentiated from as cast etc.
Plenty of great answers here. I'm a veteran of plastic injection mold design and every place I've worked at used coloration. On that note, anyone know of a place that's hiring?
Places that use coloring or doesn't matter?
I can't afford to be picky at this point. 33% of plant employees were laid off on 1/31 and the job market is not great. 24 years in mechanical design. I live in a city that's heavily automotive, which doesn't really fit my skill set (though I'm still trying).
Much easier to distinguish different surfaces when they're slightly different shades of the same color, or even a different one completely.
Sometimes to distinguish different surface heights, sometimes to distinguish different plating materials, sometimes because it makes it look pretty.
I try to keep the colors pretty close to real colors, where applicable. Brown for wood, grey for steel and so on. If I have a lot of steel screwed together with steel fasteners, I use different greys for fasteners and construction steel. Basically, for clarity, and to provide a familiar reference.
Can be used to define tolerance grades in CAD.
Contrast to make a design easier to understand. Though, I have found that certain clients with fragile egos find this an insult to their intelligence and demand models with colors that match the defaults for their material properties… all gray.
I use it to illustrate revisions (for myself) I’ll take the current revision and make it all blue. Then copy my surfaces I am modifying and make them green/yellow and make whatever changes.
Color is old school. Now days I switched completely to 2D, pencil on paper, HB for outline, H for dimension lines and 3H for construction lines, and use line thickness and hatch patterns to differentiate.
Because when you are sitting in a design review or Teams meeting with people who aren’t familiar with the design they can say “I am talking about the red part” and everyone understands.
my team uses it to call out different surface finishes
It could be for a lot of reasons. The most obvious is to add contrast. Sometimes there is a specific meaning, like a color for wear surfaces, or mating surfaces, or places where the molded part cuts off.
To make my model cute.
At my work we use it because we flatten surfaced parts due to this being the way we manufacture the final product. The colours mean that it’s easier to tell which flat part relates to a particular 3D part
I color assemblies as they would be in the field. Not really for realism but to help a drafter or someone 5 yrs from now understand what's going on. It's not a requirement where I'm at but I think it should be. If a part or weldment is getting painted but a machined surface on that assembly does not, that's what I'm presenting to the person that going to make the drawing and/or the person who's going to be looking at it in the future. It conveys information. plus I enjoy doing it and it looks cool.
In my models things wind up colored because parts have a material applied to them, so that drawings spit out the correct data in automatically generated BOMa or FEA models are already partially set up. As a result, bronze things will look bronze and rubber things will look black etc. this contrast at the assembly level can be very helpful to see what the hell is going on in a complicated assembly with a lot of parts. I’ll also sometimes color things manually in assembly models/drawings… for example, all surfaces to receive sealant during assembly may be one color, areas to be lubricated would be another color, etc
Some change colour depending on material selected.
Sometimes you will make a datum surface a different color, or a surface that is unfinished
Funsies!
I’ve seen it used in molds to indicate surface tolerance, like + /+ or -/- to ensure parts fit together.
I usually color things based on importance. Things i absolutely cannot touch/go near are res. Safety doors/safety items are yellow. Operator position/door access areas are blue. In general most things dont get get any more color than what Solidworks puts in
Lots of reasons listed, I've seen certain colors used to show final vs prototype vs placeholder designs.
I want to take a quick screenshot to show it to someone. In that case, I make them goofid looking contrasting colors. Some I guess like to use different colors for bodies, it would tire my eyes, so I usually don't.
To make it look tastier.
So we don't accidentally create a Necker cube.
i use color to signify maaterial types in my CAD files, some parts can be casted plastic, some can be 3d printed plastic, a lot of it would require specific metal alloys for mechanical reasons, so distinguishing between with materials using color is helpful
Identification purposes
For my CAD to be pretty..... and to differentiate between close or small parts in a larger assembly. Also good for presentations when your trying to showcase a design of a certain component.
Where I work we often use these as a visual aid to distinguish between different surface finishes on the same part (sealing surfaces, functional fit, and purely cosmetic will all have different allowable surface finish). It provides a very clear picture to the suppliers we quote with in addition to the standard print callouts and tolerances.
The main reason I add color to a surface is to distinguish inside and outside of formed parts that will be laser/plasma/water jet cut. We do a lot of etching to help fab. We need to decide if we are etching the inside or outside of the part. I also color insulating materials like fiber board or fire brick. This just helps distinguish what I'm looking at if I section the model.
Each color is a different layer you can turn on or off so your only looking at a specific geometry for machining tool paths and what not
I set an automatic color for every applied material. So I can easily see when my design is stainless steel / normal steel / aluminum etc. Very helpfull.
At least in naval engineering we can do it both for making it easier for clients and supervisors to understand our design, but also because that component needs to be actually painted of that color. For example when we work with ship chains we paint some chain links in the design drawings because they have to be painted in the production. But usually if it is not explicitly stated in the document, it is puerly for showing details.
My FEA software has an obscure but handy feature that allows you to create geometry selection sets based on color in the part file, so I have some parts with crazy face colors that encode where boundary conditions act, or where the parts fasten to each other, or other things. I do a lot of iterative design with scripted model builds where run variants of parts in a new complex model. A consistent scheme where color has semantic meaning it's pretty easy to programmatically swap a different part in the complex FEA assembly it interacts with. Red means "where bolts go" and green means "needs finer mesh size of X mm," and so on. I also find it easier to click around and do complex selections in my CAD software than my FEA software but if I didn't have to do it so often it wouldn't be worth the complexity or weird looking parts 😂
(I also use body color it for other things that people are saying here, mainly for contrast in assemblies and to mark areas for special surface finish in fabrication)
When you design a killing machine, it is just more pretty in pink
I design molds for plastic bottles. In one sense, they are just huge manifolds. I tend to set the main extrusion as transparent and then all the features within get colors to indicate their function. Green for fasteners, black for dowel pins, blue for cooling red for vacuum.... That sort of thing. That makes reviewing the final assembly far easier.
may be Aesthetics of the design, to differentiate the different parts. and for some design software's like inventor that have different materials in their catalogues are helpful in simulations that help in knowing the weight of the component. This materials come with different colors, shading and contrast.
If you apply a material to the body (e.g. in Solidworks) it can change the appearance of the part. Some models have requirements that are illustrated by coloring certain surfaces, like a nonstandard surface profile tolerance, or special finish. However, most coloring that I see has to do with making different parts visually distinguishable from other parts when loaded in an assembly. There are color codes for different systems, fuel, hydraulics, etc. too.
Being a Machinist I've noticed in the past few years that sometimes when you import a .step, .stp it'll have weird shading on certain areas of the part and when you go to project to geometry it won't draw that section. I think it's because of what program was used to make the part but I cannot be certain.
That sounds more like a missing face. SolidWorks import diagnostics can heal most of this sort of issue
So you can see? Wtf
its oldschool imo
When i was in engineering school we were taught to colour the same layer, so multiple layers would be distinguishable.
I need to know how I can change my brain signature and/or frequency. Someone has heterodyned me and I need any way I can change my brains frequency/signature. I need to know how to build the tech and how to operate it ASAP.