Faster Edit Parts in Solid Edge with Face / Part Priorities & Set Selection options

In the Solid Edge Assembly environment one can edit two or more parts simultaneously without diving in to part modelling & editing sketches. This not only saves valuable time but also lets you think freely about modifying the model instead of preplanning & worrying about later stage design changes.

So, how this is done?

Synchronous technology is definitely a dynamic tool to make instant edits but in context to assembly the quick editing is very much governed by selecting face/part priorities & set selection that if not done carefully will end up giving unexpected results.

All the necessary options of selecting a component can be seen in fig.1 above. The options are self explanatory, our focus will be on face / part priority (highlighted in box). At a time, you can be using only one of them, let’s see what are they?

PART PRIORITY

If a complete component has to be selected you have to fence select over the component when it is fully visible on the graphics window (or turn overlapping on to select the component even if a portion of it is fence selected). If you want to select just a face of the component that you wish to edit, it is not possible with this option enabled.

FACE  PRIORITY

With this  option enabled, if you try to fence select a portion of Component(s) only the nearby faces will be selected & the steering wheel appeared if used will edit the these face(s) of component(s). With this you can edit selected faces of component(s) simultaneously as per design requirements.

Note: Be sure the faces you are selecting & want to edit should be in synchronous mode & not in ordered. If they are in ordered mode move them to synchronous.

Your Cursor also tells you whether you have part or face priority enabled, if former is enabled the cursor will have 3D cube (yellow) subscript indicating part  & in latter it will have a rectangle (blue) subscript indicating face.

EDITING SOLID EDGE ASSEMBLY WITH FACE PRIORITY & SET SELECTION

Now it is clear that you can edit required faces with face priority option, but only nearby faces can be edited. What if you require to simultaneously edit more faces (of same or other components in the assembly) that are not near to the faces you fence selected?

This is done by adding the faces to set after fence selection. Lets see with an example.

Below in Fig.2 there’s a Barrel Cam assembly

The assembly has 4 followers, 1cylidrical cam having a cam profile cut in center and an alignment ring that holds the followers. Suppose we need to increase length of the followers (from below) & along with this we have to increase length of  of alignment ring’s ribs by same amount.

To do this 1st we enable face priority then fence select the bottom portion of all followers to select the bottom faces. All 4 faces will be highlighted  & steering wheel will appear along with the move command bar as shown below in Fig 3.

Now on the command bar click on the 3rd option having a cube with plus sign over it as highlighted in fig.3 above. This option helps to add entities to your selecion to make a set. After clicking on this option notice your cursor, it will have a ‘+’ & ‘-‘ sign above & below it respectively indicating you to add / remove entities from your set. Now you have 3 options to proceed as mentioned below:

  • Click & select new entities to add them to set, click on selected entities to deselect if added a wrong entity to your set.
  • Press spacebar & notice your cursor, the ‘-‘ sign has disappeared & only ‘+’ sign remains it means now you can only add new elements to the set.
  • Press spacebar again & notice your cursor, the ‘+’ sign has disappeared & only ‘-‘ sign remains it means now you can only remove selected elements from the set.

Now with the 1st option selected just click on bottom face of the alignment ring’s flange (as shown in fig. 3 above) to add it to the set. Now as usual click on down vector of steering wheel & move the mouse along, this will increase the length of the followers & ribs simultaneously by same amount as shown in fig. 4 below.

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