Solidworks Appearances Not Showing: How to Fix

Solidworks Appearances Not Showing
Solidworks Appearances Not Showing

Have you ever tried and failed to change the color of the faces, components, or bodies of a component or assembly?

The reason that appearances aren’t showing is that SOLIDWORKS has a predetermined hierarchy for appearances. The emphasis of this article will be on the current Appearances hierarchy, including adding and deleting Appearances.

Reasons for Solidworks Appearances Not Showing

A component’s appearance target will show up when you drag and drop an appearance onto it. Depending on where the appearance was put, a certain hue will be produced as the final outcome. This might be a characteristic, face, or body of a portion, a constituent, or the overall assembly.

A previous appearance may be overwritten depending on where the appearance is put, or no changes may be made since another appearance has already been placed higher in the hierarchy. Identifying an appearance’s place in the hierarchy is necessary in order to properly comprehend how to modify or remove it.

Every other appearance is superseded if one is applied at the assembly level. When an appearance is applied to a part, appearances applied to its components, such as its features, body, and face, may override it.

The Hierarchy

According to the “hierarchy,” the likelihood that your choice will be visible increases the higher it is on the list. From highest to lowest priority, here it is:

  1. Assembly (When an appearance is assigned to an assembly, it takes precedence over all other appearance settings).
  2. Component (An item chosen for an upper-level assembly is known as a component).
  3. Face (regardless of whether the face is chosen in the part or assembly).
  4. Body
  5. Feature
  6. Part (If the appearance has been assigned in the part window or is particularly used at the component level in the assembly).

How to check for Existing Appearance Hierarchies

The Feature Manager Design Tree or Display Manager contains existing appearances. To view what appearances have been applied to each part, expand your browser as your first step of advice when working with appearances.

Solidworks existing appearance hierarchies

The symbols used for appearance are described in the table below.

SymbolDescription
Applied a color indicated by a ball symbolHaving applied a color is indicated by a ball symbol.
Top and Bottom color ball symbolThe color given to the part in the assembly is shown by the top color when you have an icon that resembles a split ball. The color at the bottom represents the part's color in the part file.
Bottom half color ball symbolWhen there are no appearance overrides defined in the assembly, the component color is shown by the appearance ball's bottom half.
Upper half color ball symbolThe upper half ball sign indicates that the sub assembly has acquired the appearance at the assembly level.

Select Hierarchy as the sort order to examine the appearances hierarchy. Components denote appearances that were added during assembly.

Examine the appearances hierarchy using sort order

How to Effectively Add Appearances

Recognizing the object to which an appearance is being applied is crucial when adding them. When using the Task Manager’s appearance tab, choose the appropriate appearance to add. When selecting an area to apply the appearance too, left-drag over it while hovering over it.

Once the mouse is released, a selection bar will appear. From the selection bar, pick Face, Feature, Body, Part, or Assembly.

Adding appearances

As soon as you choose one of the options presented, the selection bar disappears. Additionally, you may apply appearance to the part by double-clicking on it. When you double-click on an appearance while inside of an assembly, it takes precedence over all other appearances there.

How to Remove Appearances

Simply pick that part in the browser, left-click on the appearance icon, and choose “Clear All Top-Level Overrides” to get rid of the appearance that was assigned at the assembly level. Take note that doing so will just eliminate the highlighted or chosen part’s appearance override.

Removing appearances

There is no designated assembly color, as you can see in the appearance icon, which just shows the part color. The assembly appearance that was previously given to the component will be restored if you choose Clear Override or Clear All Top-Level Overrides.