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Emil Rindell
Jonas Bryntesson
Henrik Andersson
August 12, 2025
Emil Rindell
Jonas Bryntesson
Henrik Andersson
August 12, 2025
Question: As a beginner, I find it difficult to see and understand the difference between a Part a Feature. Does it really matter which is which?
A block that you release from a catalog creates both things, right?
Answer: Yes, it can be tricky before you see and understand the difference. But once you get past that threshold, it's actually quite simple.
Details and their Building Blocks
One Part corresponds to a detail that has its own name, item number, color, and can carry a lot of other metadata. All this information can also be transferred and displayed in the drawing header or bill of materials (BOM) of the 2D drawing.
A Feature corresponds to a building block that is always part of a Part. It is primarily used to create a geometric shape as part of a detail, but of course it has a name and a unique color, but it can never contain metadata that is displayed on a 2D drawing.
Part consists of one or more Features.
Feature builds up a Part.
Copying Part Feature?
A very common problem that we often see in support is that a Feature has been copied Feature of a Part.
The reason is usually that the Part consists of only one Feature and therefore the edge lines for a Feature yellow) match exactly the edge line that the Part also has (blue).
The result on the screen may initially appear to be correct. The copies of the "model" you copied all appear to be in the right place. However, if you look at the history tree, you will see that there is still only one Part that it now consists of even more building blocks. The 2D drawing's parts list will not list more rows or change the number of that detail, even though you can see the new models in the views. So even though everything almost "looks right," it was not exactly what you expected to happen.
Copy Part
Select the blue part before turning on the TriBall.
The result of the copy should be a new blue part(last) in the tree.
Copy Feature
Select thefeature be copied before turning on TriBall.
The result of the copy should be a new feature placed last under the blue part in the tree.
There is also a post that explains how to split a part several parties by "splitting" features into new parties. More on that in another post.
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