Opacity Switch

Making overlying structure transparent

This option is only displayed if the currently selected data component is one of the following:

Beam
Spring
Spotweld
SPC
Seatbelt
X-Section
Load Path
ICFD
CESE

All of these entity types are often buried inside a model which also contains shells and solids, and it can be difficult to see them because of the intervening structure. Therefore D3PLOT allows you to make this overlying structure transparent when performing beam plots.

This option is preserved for backwards compatibility. A more flexible method would be to adjust the visual transparency of the overlying structure, using the "quick pick" option, or explicit settings in the PROPs panel.

This example shows the affect of the Opacity Switch on a Beam data component.

Normally overlying structure will obscure (correctly) any beams that are behind it.

This example shows a typical concrete column with reinforcement and, clearly, it would be useful to visualise forces in the enclosed area while still seeing the external concrete outline.

When the OPACITY_SWITCH is turned off the overlying structure is no longer opaque, (i.e. it becomes transparent), and the results in the beams obscured above become visible.

By default the OPACITY_SWITCH is off, i.e. beams which should not be visible are indeed obscured by the overlying structure. It can be turned on/off at will.
Note:	The OPACITY_SWITCH affects both beam and contact surface data plotting modes (the same switch in both contexts). It has no effect in other contexts, or upon plotting modes that do not display data.