CAD Forum

You need to select this option in the feature's property manager.

Certainly a handy feature in some environments. Disastrous in others. I wish I could lock that option out, force not checked.


Please don't try this in PDM or when the part has many other where used.

bnemec wrote: ↑Mon Nov 07, 2022 2:29 pm Certainly a handy feature in some environments. Disastrous in others. I wish I could lock that option out, force not checked.


Please don't try this in PDM or when the part has many other where used.

I agree that it can be dangerous. I use it sparingly, but when I do it's always on project specific Parts.

By the way, I posted this because it comes up occasionally, and it just came up at the forum that shall not be named earlier today, so next time it does I can link to this.

Glenn Schroeder wrote: ↑Mon Nov 07, 2022 4:28 pm I agree that it can be dangerous. I use it sparingly, but when I do it's always on project specific Parts.

By the way, I posted this because it comes up occasionally, and it just came up at the forum that shall not be named earlier today, so next time it does I can link to this.

I use it very sparingly too. And when I do it is to translate the feature to the part. Then I go into the part and remove the dependencies and make everything fully defined. After doing that to the affected parts I remove that feature from the assembly.

DennisD wrote: ↑Mon Nov 07, 2022 5:06 pm I use it very sparingly too. And when I do it is to translate the feature to the part. Then I go into the part and remove the dependencies and make everything fully defined. After doing that to the affected parts I remove that feature from the assembly.

Yes! exactly. There are several methods to sprinkle tiny flecks of top-down tools into a strictly bottom-up workflow. I wish they were showed off as much as the rest.

Glenn Schroeder wrote: ↑Mon Nov 07, 2022 4:28 pm I agree that it can be dangerous. I use it sparingly, but when I do it's always on project specific Parts.

By the way, I posted this because it comes up occasionally, and it just came up at the forum that shall not be named earlier today, so next time it does I can link to this.

Yep, I'm glad you posted it, I shouldn't be such an antagonist. It's good to know more about the tool. I just wish all our users could understand enough about the various tools to know when, how, why or why not to use them. I'll use things like this from time to time too, but the key is only for development and then go back and clean up. But in marketing and blogs and most of the trainings the topic is covered at face value, but the pitfalls are not explored. I get that most of those pitfalls are so context dependent that there's no way to cover them all. But maybe a disclaimer that touches on a couple, so the unsuspecting user has some awareness of how this one process might interact with others.

bnemec wrote: ↑Tue Nov 08, 2022 9:51 am
Yep, I'm glad you posted it, I shouldn't be such an antagonist. It's good to know more about the tool. I just wish all our users could understand enough about the various tools to know when, how, why or why not to use them. I'll use things like this from time to time too, but the key is only for development and then go back and clean up. But in marketing and blogs and most of the trainings the topic is covered at face value, but the pitfalls are not explored. I get that most of those pitfalls are so context dependent that there's no way to cover them all. But maybe a disclaimer that touches on a couple, so the unsuspecting user has some awareness of how this one process might interact with others.

We allow top down type features like this in the "Concept" workflow. The engineers don't have write access to the production data so they wouldn't be able to save this type of feature trying to push the data down into those parts. A "Document control" group would move this concept to the production workflow and remove these top down features as per our standard.

We only allow top down features in production in few cases....such as wiring/cabling. Those parts are usually virtual anyway.

jcapriotti wrote: ↑Tue Nov 08, 2022 10:02 am A "Document control" group would move this concept to the production workflow and remove these top down features as per our standard.

This sounds like a really nice thing in your document workflow. I wish literally anyone else cared about modeling, external references and or even hiding their sketches before trying to release stuff...

AlexB wrote: ↑Tue Nov 08, 2022 10:08 am This sounds like a really nice thing in your document workflow. I wish literally anyone else cared about modeling, external references and or even hiding their sketches before trying to release stuff...

Company size determines this I think for most companies. We have 100 engineers and 25 Drafter/Designers. The engineers do concepts.....the drafter/designers do the rest and there are "checkers" in the workflow to ensure this stuff is handled per standard. Stuff still slips through but it's mostly clean.

Is that similar to doing an edit part in the assembly and linking sketch geometry to the other parts? Can't say I ever used that check box, but I very rarely use assembly features, like jcapriotti said above, it's great for concept work, but if you have to actually do detail drawings or have PDM it can cause issues.