About Feature Modifiers

Feature modifiers are functional features that modify shape or functional features. Feature modifiers modify the shapes of selected features by adding or removing material.

This page discusses:

Feature Modifier Chain

You can add functional modifiers by selecting a feature, such as, a prism and modify with modifiers such as cuts. As additional feature modifiers affect the geometry, a localized modifier chain is created. Each modifier affects the feature that exists directly beneath it in the chain.

The modification symbol appears over the nodes of the features that are modified.

If a feature modifier is deactivated and a new feature modifier is created on the same functional feature, then the local modifier chain is modified.

  • In this case, the new feature modifier becomes child of the deactivated modifier.

  • When you activate the feature modifier, it becomes child of the new functional feature. For example, a cut is created on an added feature. The cut is deactivated and a new feature, pattern, is now created. In this case, the pattern becomes a child of added feature. When the cut is activated, it becomes the child of the pattern.

Feature Modifier Rules

The rules for creating a feature modifier chain are as follows:

  • A functional feature can be a target of a feature modifier if it is currently not a target, that is, it does not have a modifier as a parent or both the feature and the modifier have the same parent.

  • The position of a feature modifier within its chain can be modified only if it becomes the target of a sibling feature modifier. For example, if a pattern selects a fillet that is its sibling, the current parent-child relation of the fillet is broken. The fillet becomes the child of the pattern.

  • If a feature modifier is moved within the chain, immediate children and their branches that are not present in the selected chain are also moved.

  • A functional feature cannot be the target of a feature modifier if its inclusion in the chain at that position would cause feature modifiers, regardless of their activation status, above it in the chain to have more leaf target functional features than the allowed limit. For example, some functional modifiers, such as the functional fillet, allow only a single leaf target.

Feature Modifiers in the Tree

Feature modifiers are aggregated under their targets in the tree. If a feature modifier acts on more than one feature, the feature modifier node is present under the nodes of all features that it modifies. Consequently, if you select the feature modifier node under one feature, all occurrences of the feature modifier node are selected. The node of the sketch or input profile is present under the feature node above the feature modifier nodes.