SketchVis - Toggle Sketch Visibility Instantly
Description
Have you ever been frustrated by the inability to toggle the sketch visibility off/on using just a keyboard shortcut - if this is you, your frustrations are over.
No more clumsily enabling and disabling sketch visibility across components just to get a clear view of the bodies; just a quick tap of the keyboard is now all you need and the sketches are hidden. Another tap and they are back, all without changing the status of individual sketch visibility.
Scripts are floating around the internet that provide similar functionality by modifying individual sketch visibility, but I never had much success with that when using designs with complex component hierarchies and the like, so I developed this add-in to save my sanity (and now yours).
While this may seem trivial, the ability to toggle sketch visibility on and off in an instant has revolutionized my design workflow.
So how does this add-in work?
The addin creates a button on the Utilities | Addin Tab that when clicked will toggle the Display Settings | Object Visibility | Sketches setting option and hide or show sketches accordingly.
Crucially, unlike the Sketch visibility setting, this add-in can be assigned a keyboard shortcut (Control+` is my go-to here), and/or marked as a shortcut depending on your preference.
I created one of those scripts that is floating around the internet. This works better than mine! I will keep mine enabled to use as a secondary function because now that I have gotten used to it I quite like to unhide ALL of the sketches sometimes. Maybe an extra feature you could implement to map a second hotkey to?
Thanks - I originally thought that there was more demand for this tool and was planning on commercialising it, but that didn't seem to be the case. I am not planning on maintaining the tool beyond keeping it alive and working, but if people want to expand, I'm happy to throw the code into a public repo under a license that ensures it remains open if there is desire.
I tried other sketch hiding scripts and workarounds but none just work like this plugin. Its fast, doesn't mess with my sketches and just works.
This should be a standard feature,but as it isn't its the next best thing and definitely worth it for me. Autodesk, please take note.