Block Display Options

Use the block display options to provide visual information about the blocking topology and underlying geometry.

• To toggle visibility of blocking faces, edges, and vertices in the design window, you can use Show Block Cage.

  Then, the following options determine what is displayed.

  • To show block vertices, enable Vertices.

    Note: Edge split vertices used for shaping the edge remain even if block vertices are not shown.

  • To shade block faces based on the block type, enable Shaded.

    • Solid blocks that are mapped will have their faces displayed as green.

    • Solid blocks that are swept will have their faces displayed as blue.

    • Solid blocks that are free will have their faces display as red.

    • The displayed surface texture indicates the type of surface mesh. A checker board pattern indicates mapped mesh, solid indicates free mesh.

  • To show block edges, including edge split vertices used for shaping blocking edges, if they exist, enable Wireframe.

    Note: The color of displayed edges and vertices indicates how they are associated to the underlying geometry, assuming Edges connectivity display is disabled. See Associating the blocking to geometry.

• To toggle transparency of the underlying geometry (when mesh visibility is turned off), you can use Ghost blocked geometry. Default is enabled.

  • For bottom up block editing, it is usually helpful to make the geometry more transparent to see the block edges and vertices as you edit.
  • For top down block editing, it is usually helpful to make the geometry more opaque to see how the block edges associate to the geometry.
  Note: When Ghost blocked geometry is enabled, smart selection allows for easier selection of block entities for setting up mesh controls and block editing operations when the mesh has been generated.

• To closely fit the blocking faces and edges to curved geometry, enable Projected shape.

  Edge split vertices used for shaping blocking edges, if they exist, will remain on the associated curves even if Projected Shape is disabled.

  Note: Projected shape of surfaces is achieved by projecting nodes in the mesh to the geometry. If you zoom in, you can see the straight-line borders of the individual mesh facets.