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Aimed primarily at machine design, UGS claims to have delivered enhancements in version 10 of Solid Edge commonly requested by their 8,000 customers.
In addition to enhancements to existing functionality and productivity, highlights in v10 include assembly configurations, sheet metal flat version enhancements, weldments and drawing view handling.
By definition assemblies contain multiple parts, usually as relative movement occurs between them.
Since components are intended to occupy several if not numerous relative positions, it is important that each critical position can be represented for review in the CAD model.
Version 10 introduces Alternate Position assemblies allowing different configurations to be created and specified wherever the assembly is used including drawing views.
This avoids the need to create multiple versions of the assembly by containing all configurations in a single assembly file.
Component positions can be driven by numeric variables for all or selected instances.
A variation on this ability is Family of Assemblies which also enables some parts and subassemblies to be different between the configurations.
The power of this feature is evident in the intelligent handling of mates which are maintained with the replacement parts wherever possible.
This mate handling also applies if a part is manually replaced into the assembly, with the option to specify whether all or selected instances are to be replaced.