CAD Forum

I am looking for a macro that will run feature recognition on all parts in a step file( an assembly with parts and sub assemblies). This would include all parts in all sub-assemblies within the parent.

After seeing what feature works is capable of, I wonder what use case would produce desirable results running feature works lights out. 99% of what I've seen the dumb solid is more desirable than the automatic FeatureWorks.

I am trying to save a newer version as a step file and the convert that step file into something that is editable in the older version. Many parts and subassemblies to convert. Dumb solid is useless in that case.

SW2024 can save files in lower version with history preserved. Some new feature may not convert though.

You can have 2023 or 2022 files generated from 2024.

kj-1715 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 20, 2023 12:34 pm I am trying to save a newer version as a step file and the convert that step file into something that is editable in the older version. Many parts and subassemblies to convert. Dumb solid is useless in that case.

The Featureworked files I'm speaking of were imported from Solid Edge (Parasolid translation) and in every case where someone used FeatureWorks we have deleted the file and either done properly from scratch or imported the dumb solid. There's
- no design intent.
- sketches are laid out with terrible dimension and sketch relations.
- most future edits will likely cause down stream failures because no thought put into the design tree, this will cause features to be recreated causing new geometry IDs and failed assembly mates and dangling annotations in drawings.
- best editing method for featureworked models is direct editing, which works on dumb solids too, but faster.

We are four years into SW and still remodeling featureworked files from scratch because that's better than trying to use it as an editable file. Now many of them have dozens of where used assemblies to fix too, should have done it right the first time.

But, like I asked earlier, I'm interested in a use case where featureworks lights out proves to be helpful. We did run into a couple examples of using featureworks manually, but they are rare. So rare that it's not worth documenting the process.