Merged bodies....to do or not to

Arthur,

I see multi bodies as a construction tool, not a way to represent a "single" component. The results of your design should represent the real world, one component=single body. This is also very important when it comes to manufacturing. It could be problematic with regards to mold design. Also, some CAM systems don't handle multiple bodies in a single part well. This is especially true if your using IGES for data exchange.

Regards

Mark

For fabricated parts I'd prefer not to merge mostly because the drawings show lines where the lines oughta be. This is an improvement in my opinion, but I sure would like to be able to patten and mirror those unmerged parts.

I think you can pattern and mirror bodies, in the mirror options diaglouge, there is a pick list for bodies so you can select the bodeis you want to pattern or mirror.

Lee

Until SW came out with multi-body support your only choice when building a part was to work with an entirely merged part. With a few exceptions you should always end up with a fully merged part when done modeling.

Multibodies allows the freedom for the user to sequence the creation of fillets, Loft between bodies with tangency, do boolean operations, etc.

Personally, I prefer only to use features such as merged bodies, multi bodies and combine as a last resort.

As a freelance designer I occasionally inherit models that have been created by "self taught" solidworks pilots, in many cases these are fine, however, on a number of occasions merged bodies, multi bodies, combine and cavity have all been used when other modelling techniques would have produced less flaky models.

Kev

You're right Lee. I had a chat to SWX support today and they told me how to do it. I wasn't looking at all the options when making a patten or mirror and should've flicked out the bodies option.

Now I'm a happy camper!

Cheers..