Changing the Color of Parts, Features & Faces in CATIA

by Amy Rath

 

There are two main methods in which you can change the colors of parts, features, and faces.

Either:

1.       Right mouse button click and choose properties from the contextual menu,  or

2.       Use the Graphic Properties toolbar

 

Each method of these methods is shown below. 

Figure 1: Changing color by using the Properties dialog box

Figure 2: Changing color using the Graphic Properties toolbar

 

The trick to changing color is understanding the level of hierarchy.  You can change the color by making several different selections, each having a different effect on your model. The options are: select the part body or geometrical set, select the feature in the spec tree, or select faces of the model.

An example of each is shown below.

Figure 3: This example is changing the color at the PartBody level (works the same on geometrical sets). Every feature inside the PartBody changes to the selected color. All four features are yellow.

 

Figure 4: This example is selecting a feature and changing the color. You can see that selecting the EdgeFillet.1 feature and changing the color to blue overrode the PartBody color change of yellow. Selecting a feature and changing the feature’s color is a higher level than changing the color at the PartBody level.

 

Figure 5: This next example is selecting a face and changing the color. When selecting a face and changing the color, you are changing the color at the highest level. One face of the fillet was selected and the color changed to green. Be cautious when using this method; as mentioned it is the highest level. If you want your model to go back to being all yellow again, you will have to select each face and change the color.

 

Once a part file is added to a product file, the part instance can be selected and the color changed. This will trump all color changes made at the part file level. This is shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Color change at the part instance level.

 

Comments

[Kids Face Painting]

Nice post. Thanks for the steps to teaching us changing the color of parts and Features & Faces in CATIA. The very easy method you have discussed. Thanks for sharing!!