Assembly Constraints

What's New: 2027.1

Assembly constraints establish the orientation of the components in the assembly and simulate mechanical relationships between components.

For example, you can:

• Mate two planes.
• Specify that cylindrical features on two parts remain concentric.
• Constrain a spherical face on one component to remain tangent to a planar face on another component.

Each time you update the assembly, the assembly constraints are enforced.

Access work geometry when adding constraints

Temporarily display all Origin geometry (workplanes, axes, and Origin point) of the active component while using the constrain command. This action toggles the visibility of work geometries that are hidden. When the command is finished or a selection is complete the work geometries that were made visible return to being hidden.

With the Constrain command active:

• And Pick Component First deselected, press the ALT key to display Origin geometry. You can select any Origin geometry as a constraint input.

  • While pressing the ALT key, press the CTRL key to display Origin work geometry without holding down any keys. Select an input or press ALT again to cancel the temporary display of work geometry.

• With Pick Component First selected, click the desired component then press the ALT key to display the Origin geometry for the selected component.

  Note: Pressing ALT while Pick Component First is selected does not display work geometry.

Access work geometry when editing constraints

1. Edit an existing constraint.
2. In the Edit Constraint dialog, click the constraint input you want to redefine.
3. Press the ALT key to temporarily display the work geometries of the top level assembly.
4. Optional. Select Pick Component First and select the component to constrain, then press ALT to display the work geometries of the selected component.