Use part alternatives to manage design variations within your model.
As you develop a variety of different designs for a particular part, you could make each design
variant a separate part in the model, but it's often more convenient to make an alternative-a
variant of a part that is owned by the original part. Because each alternative is owned by a
parent part, your part organization can remain intact as you add design variants.
Alternatives are represented in the Model Browser as a radio-button group
under their parent. A part can have any number of alternatives, but only one of its alternatives
can be active at any one time.
Create Part Alternatives
Drag and drop to create part alternatives.
Press F2 to open the Model Browser.
Right-click a part name and drag it onto another part name.
The dragged part becomes an alternative of the part on which it was
dropped. Use the radio buttons to designate which is the active alternative of
the part.
Tip:
Shapes generated from optimization automatically become alternatives of the
part that was used as the design space.
To delete an alternative, click it and press Delete.
If you delete the top alternative under the part, the entire part and all of
its alternatives will be deleted.
Change the Part Alternative
Use the radio buttons in the Model Browser or the Alternative
Explorer to change the part alternative.
Select a part that has alternatives in the Model Browser. If
the alternatives are not visible, click the + icon to the left of
the part.
Press F2 to open the Model Browser.
Choose from the following options:
Click the radio button next to the desired alternative.
Right-click a part, and then click Alternative on
the context menu to select an alternative.
Select a different alternative in the Alternative Explorer in the top
right corner of the modeling window.
Tip:
If no + or - appears to the
left of the part name in the browser, no alternatives exist for the
part.
