Adaptive features and parts

Adaptive parts and geometry have underconstrained features, and adjust to design changes.

When you designate underconstrained geometry as adaptive, you specify the geometric elements allowed to change. You control the elements that you want to remain a fixed size or position.

Note: Parts created in external CAD systems cannot be made adaptive because imported parts are considered to be fully dimensioned.

Uses for adaptive parts

A part can be useful in multiple assemblies, as long as it can resize as needed. When you create features in a part file, leave some sketch or feature geometry under constrained, and define the features as adaptive . For example, you can drag an extrusion, but leave its depth unspecified.

After you insert a part with underconstrained features into an assembly, designate it as adaptive. When you constrain the part to fixed geometry, its adaptive features resize and change shape.

Geometry that can be adaptive

• Undimensioned sketch geometry
• Features created from undimensioned sketch geometry
• Features with undefined angles or extents
• Work features that reference geometry on other parts
• Sketches that contain projected origins
• Parts that contain adaptive sketches or features
• Subassemblies that contain parts with adaptive sketches or features

Models designated as adaptive

For a part to adapt when placed in an assembly, it must have one or more adaptive features. To specify adaptive status, use one or more of the following ways:

• Specify the adaptive parameters of a part. In the part file, select the feature in the browser, right-click, and select Properties. In the Feature Properties dialog box, select the sketch, parameters, and From/To termination planes as adaptive.
• Make all parameters of the feature adaptive at one time. After you create a feature in a part file, right-click the feature in the browser and select Adaptive.
Note: When you make a feature adaptive, all occurrences of the feature are also adaptive. If you use the feature in other parts as an iFeature or a pattern, for example, it can resize. To keep a nonadaptive version of a feature, save it with a different file name.

Limitations of adaptive geometry

To ensure that adaptive features and parts update predictably:

• Use only one tangency per revolved feature.
• Avoid offsets when applying constraints between two points, two lines, or a point and a line.
• Avoid a mate constraint between two points, a point and a plane, a point and a line, and a line and a plane.
• Avoid tangency between a sphere and a plane, a sphere and a cone, and two spheres.

Show Me how to use adaptivity