About the Appearance Gallery
The appearance gallery allows you to view, search, and assign available appearances to a model. You can assign or set appearances to an entire part, individual surfaces or quilts. In the assembly mode, you can assign an appearance to the entire assembly, active individual components or parts in the assembly. You can assign an appearance in the following ways:
• Select one or more objects and apply the active appearance.
• Select an appearance and then select the objects to apply the appearance.
The
Appearances icon on the
View tab displays the active appearance thumbnail. Clicking the icon assigns the active appearance to the selected surface or object. Clicking the arrow below the icon opens the appearance gallery. Selecting an appearance from the gallery sets it as the active appearance and closes the dialog box. The icon changes to display the active appearance thumbnail. If an object is selected in the graphics window, the active appearance is assigned to the object. If no object is selected, the icon remains in an apply appearance mode. You can select an object to apply the active appearance. Selecting another command or clicking the middle mouse button dismisses the apply appearance mode.
The appearance gallery consists of the following elements:
Appearance Filter
The appearance filter allows you to find appearances in the
My Appearances,
Model and
Library palettes. To filter the list of appearances displayed in the palettes, type a key string in the appearances filter text box and press Enter or click
. Click
to cancel the search and display all the appearances in the palettes.
• Result of the search is based on partial or full matches of appearance name and keywords. The search is not case sensitive.
• Appearances are searched in all palettes and the system library. For example, if you search for Plastic, then all palettes display appearances that have Plastic as the string in their name or keywords. The Library palette displays plastic appearances from all system files.
• If the selected appearance does not match the search result, the first appearance displayed in the palettes is selected. For example, if no appearances in the My Appearances palette match the search, the first appearance in the Library palette is selected. If no appearance in any palette matches the search, the properties and information for the default appearance is displayed.
• The customized display of the appearances in a search result is applicable only to the current session.
Clear Appearance
Click Clear Appearance to remove an appearance that is applied to the selected object. Alternatively, you can click Clear Appearance, select the objects from which you want to clear the appearance, and click OK in the Select dialog box.
• Click Clear Appearance to clear the appearance applied to the selected surface.
• Click Clear Assembly Appearances to clear appearances applied to components of an assembly. This option clears appearances applied to components at the assembly level. Appearances that are applied to components at the part level are retained.
• Click Clear All Appearances to clear all the appearances.
The default appearance is applied to the selected object. The appearance gallery dialog box closes and the
Appearances icon changes to the default appearance.
View Options
Click
to access the view options, which allow you to set the display of the appearance thumbnails. You can do the following:
• Set the display of the thumbnails in the palettes from Small Thumbnails, Large Thumbnails, Names and Thumbnails, and Names Only. The default is Small Thumbnails.
• Click Show Tooltips to enable tooltips for appearance thumbnails. Tooltips are enabled by default.
My Appearances Palette
The My Appearances palette displays the appearances that you create and are stored in the startup directory or the specified path. The palette displays thumbnail color swatches.
The default appearance is always displayed in the palette. It is not saved in .dmt files. The default appearance does not have keywords. You cannot modify the name, description, keywords or properties of the default appearance.
When accessing the My Appearances palette from the Appearances Manager, you can select the following options to create new, delete, or save appearances:
• Select
to create a new appearance or select
to delete an existing appearance.
• Select the File dropdown to open and save appearance files.
◦ Select Open to open an existing appearance file (.dmt).
◦ Select Append to open and add the contents of an appearance file (.dmt) to the palette.
◦ Select Save As to save the selected appearance as a .dmt file. The name, description and the keywords for the appearance are also saved.
You can right click on the thumbnails to open the shortcut menu.
• Click New to create a new appearance. The Appearance Editor dialog box opens with a copy of the selected appearance as the active appearance.
• Click Delete to delete the selected appearance. The default appearance cannot be deleted.
• Click Edit to modify the selected appearance. The Appearance Editor dialog box opens.
|  The Edit option is available only from the appearance gallery. |
Model Palette
The Model palette displays appearances stored and used in the active model. If the active model does not have any appearances, the default appearance is displayed in the Model palette. When a new appearance is applied to a model, it is displayed in the Model palette. If an appearance with the name exists, the new appearance name is displayed within a parenthesis. Subsequent appearances with the same name or copies are suffixed by a number. For example, if an appearance named blue is applied to a model, the name of the new appearance in the Model palette is blue or <blue> or <blue>-1.
You can right click on the thumbnails to open the shortcut menu.
• Click Edit to open the Model Appearance Editor with the selected appearance as the active appearance.
• Click New to create a new appearance. The Appearance Editor dialog box opens with a copy of the selected appearance as the active appearance.
• Click Select Objects to select all the objects that have the selected appearance. The shortcut menu is not available for the default appearance in the Model palette for a part that has no appearances applied.
Library palette
The Library palette displays a set of predefined appearances such as metals, plastics, and paint. The library browser displays the available appearances as files in a folder tree view. The files are organized in sub-folders making it easy to find the desired appearance. The selected appearance file from the library in the folder tree is displayed in the palette as a thumbnail color swatch, replacing the current appearance in the palette.
You can right click on the thumbnails to open the shortcut menu.
• Click New to create a new appearance. The Appearance Editor dialog box opens with a copy of the selected appearance as the active appearance.
| • Appearance name is unique within each palette. Selecting an appearance sets the appearance as active. The Appearances icon on the View tab changes to display the active appearance. • Appearances that require Keyshot license and Shading with Reflections enabled are displayed with a blue triangle (  ) in the lower right corner of the appearance thumbnail. |
More Appearances
Allows you to create additional appearances. Opens the Appearance Editor dialog box with a copy of the default appearance ref_color1. The appearance gallery is dismissed. The properties of the default appearance can be modified to create a new appearance.
Edit Model Appearances
Allows you edit or modify properties of appearances in the active model. Opens the Model Appearance Editor dialog box and dismisses the appearance gallery. This option is not available if only the default appearance is applied in the active model.
Appearance Manager
Opens the Appearances Manager dialog box and dismisses the appearance gallery. The Appearances Manager dialog box allows you to create, modify, delete and organize appearances. It consists of the following elements:
The appearances are grouped based on their source under My Appearances, Model, and the Library palettes.
Copy Paste Appearance
Allows you to copy an existing appearance applied to the model using a color picker and paste the copied appearance on the entire surface of the model.