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Overview: The Part Design Options dialog in CATIA controls how the geometry behaves and the general layout and look of the Part Design workbench. Your system administrator may have already set these options to your company's standards. If this is true, you cannot change them without permission. Access these options by selecting Tools Options, Infrastructure, Part Infrastructure.
General Tab
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This tab contains options that control the general behavior of the workbench.
External References
Six options are available that control how external links are referenced.
Keep link with selected object allows you to maintain the link with the original object when you perform functions such as Copy and Paste.
Create external references in Show mode defines how reference elements display during creation. Activating this option displays the external references in the Specification Tree and shows them in the Graphics window.
Confirm when creating a link with selected object displays a message asking you to confirm your selection.
Use root context in assembly allows you to select the root context, rather than minimal context.
Only use published elements for external selection lets you use only published elements in other workbenches. You can limit constraint creation in Assembly Design to published elements.
Publish a face, edge, axis, vertex, or extremity lets you publish geometry automatically for use with other workbenches.
Update
Use this area to indicate what type of update you want to perform after an operation. Select Manual to update the part when you decide by selecting Edit Update.
Activating Stop update on first error makes CATIA interrupt the update operation and display the error in the dialog, which gives you the option of editing or deleting the infringing object.
Activating Synchronize all external references for update makes CATIA update any links that may be present (for example, because of a copy operation). Deactivate this option to only update the current part.
Activate local visualization to view the part as it updates in the Graphics window.
Delete Operation
Here you can choose to display the Delete dialog box each time you delete an object. It is helpful to leave this option selected so you don't accidentally delete geometry or features.
Activating Delete exclusive parents automatically deletes parent elements that are associated with the deleted object, but not associated with other elements.
Replace
Activating Do replace only for elements situated after the In Work Object enables the user to use the Replace… command (covered later) only on features that are considered the In Work object (to be covered later).
Select
Activate Enable selection of absorbed elements when it is necessary to select geometry from the Specification Tree that is in an absorbed status when defining a feature in a Geometrical Set object. An 'absorbed status' is when an element is used to define a feature from an existing feature. The second feature absorbs the defining feature when it becomes the current In Work object.
Activate Enable selection of elements located after the current editing element to select geometry in a Geometrical Set that has been created after the element. This geometry is located in the Specification Tree after the current In Work object for use as a definition. This operation was not possible in versions earlier than R13 because of restrictions in the Specification Tree order.
Display Tab
Provides options that control the Graphics window display.
Display in Specification Tree
Specifies the default objects that display on the Specification Tree in the Part Design workbench.
Display in Geometry Area
Determines which body is shown in the Specification Tree (if there is more than one in the part file). You can also change the size of the initial axis system.
Checking Operation When Renaming
Specifies whether CATIA checks for duplicate names in the Specification Tree, and whether the check is performed at a tree node or main node level.