About Part Features

When modeling parts in Autodesk Inventor, you’ll encounter three types of part features: work features, sketched features, and placed features.

Work features are abstract construction geometry used when regular geometry is insufficient for creating and positioning new features.

Sketched and placed features add details to the base feature of the part and are positioned relative to one another using dimensional or geometric constraints. The base feature represents the most basic shape in the part.

Part features can be shared, made adaptive, and incorporated into part bodies and surfaces.

Work Features

Work features consist of planes, axes, and points that can be projected onto a sketch as a reference feature and used to construct new features. A work feature can be incorporated into dimension and constraint schemes, but is not model geometry.

To fix position and shape of part geometry, constrain sketched and placed features to work features.

Because work features are used to position geometry not accessible from a model plane, you often want to use them in a sketch. Work features cannot be created or edited in a 2D sketch, but you can use the Project command to project them into the sketch.

Note: Even if the work features lie on a plane you selected as the sketch plane, they are not automatically projected to your sketch (including if you selected the Autoproject Edges During Curve Creation option on the Sketch tab of Application Options). Use the Project command to project the work features into the sketch manually.

Projected work geometry remains associative to the work feature it is projected from. If you do not want to preserve associativity and want to modify the projected geometry (such as trim or extend), use the Break Link from the context menu. You can delete projected geometry without changing the style.

Sketched Features

A sketched feature is a feature that originates from a 2D sketch. Extruding, sweeping, revolving, or lofting a sketched profile creates volume. The volume created by the sketched feature can be joined with, cut from, or defined where it intersects with the volume of an existing feature.

Placed Features

A placed feature consists of a defined mechanical shape that serves a known engineering function in a part or assembly. A placed feature refers to existing extrusion geometry that is used to create new extrusions. Examples are holes, chamfers, fillets, shells, face drafts, and plane cuts.

Show Me the Difference Between Sketched and Placed Features