Top down design

Top-down or Bottom-up are the two most common design styles. I don't know how much detail you are looking for, but here are some simple explanations.

Bottom-up means to design each part of an assembly separately. This may be when you don't have Intralink and several designers are working on what will eventually be the same assembly. Each part is created individually and then 'merged' together into an assembly. This is when you find out how well the pieces fit together.

Top-down, however, is where each piece is created at the assembly level. I can't speak for anyone else, but that's how I have always designed even back on the boards (I just didn't know it actually had a name!). Each piece is constructed inside the assembly and them 'pieced out' to their respective detial 'parts' (.prt).

Hope that helps

Thomas, Top down design is where the functionality of an entire component module, or product, is considered simultaneously, rather than just as the sum of it's parts. High power workstations make this possible as entire assemblies can be easily manupulated and the overall effect of design changes noted. It's important to think 'top down, bottom up' when doing this, which is to say, allt he parts in an assembly must either own their own geometry, or have it fed in by the assembly, and not reference other parts in the assembly. This is because, unless you really know your stuff, you can end up creating circular references galore, leading to unregeneratable assemblies.

Top-down design as I know it, is a process where design information is passed down from the top level to lower levels. Portions of the design can then be assigned to multiple designers with reference information included, which will then update if changes are made at higher levels.