Within a large Inventor assembly it is often a challenge to view and work with components because they are either hidden by other components or they are just too hard to find. One of the best ways to overcome some of these limitations is to make components restricting your view invisible. I know you can select one or more components in the browser or graphic screen and turn off their visibility, but this is a very intensive mouse clicking process. This article would like to focus on a faster process of managing component visibility. The Inventor "Isolate" command is perfect for this task.
The "Isolate" command is only available after selecting one or more components in the assembly and is located on the right click menu.
The command functions by turning the visibility off of all the components except the selected ones. The components disappear from the graphic screen as well as the browser component icon changing to a shade of gray indicating that they are hidden.
Once you are ready to return all components to a visible state, simply right click on top of the graphic display and choose "Undo Isolate". This will return all the invisible components to a visible state.
But what if you would like to turn off the visibility of all the components except the one(s) you select. The process is same but there is an extra step. After selecting one or more components you would like to make invisible, hold down the Shift key and press the right mouse button. In the context menu select "Invert Selection". This will reverse your component selection set.

The "Invert Selection" command is also located on the drop down menu located on the Quick Access Toolbar.

From this point on the process is the same. Select "Isolate" from the right click context menu and "Undo Isolate" when you wish to restore the visibility of all components.
There is another command that is very similar to the "Isolate" command called "Isolate Component". To use this command, first select an assembly relationship (formally known as a constraint) and right mouse click. Selecting the "Isolate Component" command will turn off the visibility of all components not are involved in the selected relationship. This makes it much easier to work with the relationship either to edit it or understand how it was applied.
To return the visibility of all components, right click and select "Undo Isolate" from the context menu.
It is important not to execute the "Isolate" command twice in a row without using the "Undo Isolate" command between them. Inventor only records the components involved in the most recent "Isolate" command so if you execute two "isolate" commands in sequence, without an "Undo Isolate" command between them, the visibility state of the first "Isolate" command will not be available when you try and execute the "Undo Isolate" command. The command will be grayed out prohibiting you from selecting it.
If you find yourself in this situation, you can use the "Find Assembly Components" dialog box to select all the assembly components that are invisible and then right click and turn their visibility on all at one time.
These Inventor commands will help you quickly navigate the most complex Inventor model allowing you to focus on the exact components will removing all others from the display.