Welcome to our guide for the 3D viewer!

Here, you will learn how to check your assembly and even the whole project in different dimensions, and how you can hugely benefit from it.

3D viewer

3D viewer we have is even more awesome than 2D viewer, as it allows you to things that are simply impossible with the paper drawings.

There are a couple of great benefits of the 3D viewer:

• View the assembly from different angles by freely moving/rotating it;
  Have a holistic view of the whole project and which role your assembly plays in it;
  Conceptualize your build from 2D to 3D and see how it actually looks in different dimensions
  

NOTE: Please use 3D viewer for reference only and always pull 2 different dimensions for the reference to make sure they correspond.

Reference numbers:

One(1) - Controls buttons. There are some fixed directions, as well as a switcher for free rotation/movement.

It's a default view for the 3d viewer.

Two(2) - Actions menu with different options like select part or tools with the measurement. This is the main menu with basic actions.

Three(3) - Assembly/Project view. Allows to switch the view and check the role of the assembly within the whole project.

Let's learn more about those features.

Step 1: Control buttons

When you click on Controls button, there are 4 options available:

• Rotate 180 degrees horizontally;
• Rotate 90 degrees vertically;
• A switcher for a free rotate/move mode.
• Reset

💡 What's the difference between 180 and 90 degrees rotation? 💡

As you can see from the screenshot, 180° is a half circle and 90° is only a quarter. Within the FabStation Rotate 180 button will also turn the assembly part horizontally:

Task:

a) Rotate it to see how it looks from the back.

b) Zoom in the assembly to see the small parts if they are present.

Step 2: Main menu

Apart from the Controls described above, there are many other useful options within the menu:

2.1 Visuals

Within this submenu, it's possible to change assembly view to suit your needs.

You can switch on and off the parts with the circles with part names on the left.

Dark gray circle – the part is visible (turned on).

Light gray circle – the part is invisible (turned off).

As you can see above, there are options to view only a particular part/parts of the assembly and their location in space in relation to other parts.

It's also possible to search and hide/show a specific part of the assembly:

There is also an option to hide miscellaneous parts. For instance would be bolts, welds etc.

2.2 Select part

The main part is always the biggest selected by default and marked in blue. But what if you need to align the model to a different part of the assembly.

It's possible to change the part using "Select part" button.

As you see, the submenu has the same buttons as controls, and it allows you to rotate or move an assembly.

Once the main part is changed, the new will be marked in blue:

You will learn more about Select Part feature in the Advanced Alignment.

2.3 Home button and Tools

Home button simply takes you to the mode menu (View, Fabricate or Inspect depending on what you chose before).

Tools have their submenu with 2 options: Measure and Assembly info.

Measure function is a ruler that allows to check the distance from A to B. You can measure the distance only between the red dots, so once you turned on Measure, zoom in the assembly and tab two times to see the differences between those points:

Assembly info allows checking the part name by tapping on it.

Mind that you can still rotate and move an assembly using the Tools functionality.

Task:

a) Go to Visuals. Click on "OTHER PARTS" and then turn on the other part back to see what exactly you are building

b) Go to Select part. Rotate an assembly and choose a different part. Make sure to click on "Confirm after selection".

c) Using tools measure the difference between two red points on your assembly and check if the distance actually corresponds to the one on your real assembly.

2.4 Info and hamburger menu

Apart from Assembly info within the Tools, there is another Info among Main menu buttons such serves as a short reference page for all the buttons present within the 3d viewer.

The Hamburger menu in the middle hides all the buttons and allows viewing the assembly on a clean screen.

Step 3: Assembly and Project view

There are 2 types of view within a 3D viewer - Assembly and Project ones.

The default one is an Assembly View. This is the view you will be using all the time. Since its options were described on the previous pages, let's speak about a Project view.

Use case: While working on the assembly, you need to see if your part is a critical component of the project. This can be done by switching to the project view:

As you can see, once the view changed to Project, some buttons remained, while some changed/disappeared.

The only button that actually changed their functionality is Controls. It still has Reset and Rotation/Move switcher, but instead of the fixed rotations (90 and 180 degrees) there is a new button "Opacity".

This option allows to increase/reduce the transparency of the whole project:

Good job! You have completed the basics of the 3D viewer 🎉🎉🎉

Time to take some simple tests to concrete your knowledge 💪

Time for some short tests!

💡 We recommend you to open the FabStation and actually check the questions with your assembly before replying. 💡

Perfect! Now, as all the tests are done, get yourself some rest and feed free to play with the 3D viewer as much as you want.

In the next lesson, we will teach you how to align an element with the FabStation using a tablet or a HoloLens.