Whats the point of copy-geom features?

[SW]

Most of the work I do involves designs
that often go through large changes as they evolve. To try and
propagate changes I try and employ top-down design methods. I usually
build skeleton models and then use publish and copy geom features to
model the individual parts.


While this is effective to some extent,
each time I make a significant change to the skeleton model, I have
to redefine the skeleton model, the publish geometry feature and then
the part itself. Also, you can't directly use a sketch inside a copy
geom feature to crate features in the individual parts; instead
you've got to use the sketch as a reference.


Sometimes I don't bother with copy-geom
features and just directly reference the skeleton model in the
individual part. What are the connotations of doing this? Apart from
always needing the skeleton in session, does it create big problems?
As I generally use dependant copy-geom features anyway, why bother
with the creation of shared geometry features?


Any comments on how people handle the
design scenarios that undergo large changes would be appreciated.





Sam

 

[rrleclair]

You're right, it's kind of a long process to do external copy geoms, and I touched on this a bit... if you have everything in session, you should be able to change the skeleton model, and regenerate your top assembly and have everything update? The main benefit I see is that you don't have to have everything in session in order to use the part because of the use of making the copy geom independant or dependant, but more or less I see it as a doubled edged sword, and still am not sure of the overall benefit. It seems like a lot of work to get to a point that you could do rather easily before anyway, and if you use the tool correctly to begin with, your chances of having your model crash are slim anyway...