About Assembly Selection Aids

Drill-down selection allows you to disassemble sub-assemblies that are locked down by other parts. That way, you can select parts as they are exposed in the assembly process.

When you first click on a part, a number of cases apply.

• If there is no subassembly, you select the part itself.
• If the part is a component of a single sub-assembly and there are no tracks already defined, the first time you click on the part, you actually select the top sub-assembly. To select the part itself, immediately click a second time, while pressing the Page Down key
• If the part is a component within a hierarchy of sub-assemblies and there are no tracks already defined, the first time you click on the part, you actually select the top sub-assembly. To drill down, immediately click a second time, while pressing the Page Down key. This selects the next level of sub-assembly. To select the part itself, continue clicking and pressing the Page Down key until you get to the required level.
• If there is a track within the part's sub-assembly, the selection drills down to the object (either a part or a sub-assembly) that has the track. Depending on the complexity of your sub-assembly hierarchy structure, you may wish to select a sub-assembly level above the track. To do this, click while pressing the Page Up key until you get to the required level.

Double-clicking in the work area resets the drill-down level, so the next selection is determined as if you had clicked on the part for the first time.

To drill down to a part, you need to be able to see a portion of geometry belonging to it when all the parts from that sub-assembly are in their assembled positions. If a part is completely hidden by other parts in the same sub-assembly, there is no way to drill down to it.

As you select and move parts, the system automatically assesses whether any part collides or clashes with another. You can turn off or modify clash detection.

The clash modes are Highlight, Stop, and Off. Stop is the default mode. You can press F4 to change the clash mode. The clash mode appears in the upper right corner as you modify the clash

Clash detection is enabled during part manipulation. The clash analysis occurs between the moved sub-assembly and the parts that are still assembled. If the selected object collides during manipulation, the manipulation stops and the object returns to its previous, non-clash position. The parts involved in the clash are highlighted.