My last few blogs discussed the two rebuild command in SolidWorks: standard rebuild (the "green light" icon) versus forced rebuild (CTRL-Q). Regardless of which command is used, it is important to understand what is happening when SolidWorks is building a feature.
When a feature is being built, the modeling engine is carrying out an instruction in the file's instruction set. The resulting information is geometry in the design space. SolidWorks will check this geometry against existing geometry in the model to make sure it "fits" geometrically.
By default, SolidWorks checks the geometry it is building against the adjacent faces, that is, the faces that share an edge with the face(s) of the feature it is building. If you are building a fillet, for example, SolidWorks checks to see if the face of the fillet fits with the faces the fillet shares edges with ("connects to"). If it fits, SolidWorks moves on. If not, an error is generated.
While this level of geometry checking is generally efficient, in some cases it is not sufficient. There can be cases where the face being built intersects with faces already in the model, but there is no intentional connection; they aren't supposed to share edges. While this will certainly be a problem, the default level of checking doesn't catch this because it only checks against faces it is supposed to connect with.
For this reason, SolidWorks has another level of checking. Tools, Options, System Options, Performance has a switch called Verification on Rebuild/Enable Advanced Geometry Checking. When this is active, SolidWorks checks the face it is building against all existing faces in the model. This will ensure nothing sneaks past, but it does come at the cost of performance, especially in large and complex models with many faces.
In the end, what I recommend is this: as part of your release procedure, activate the Verification on Rebuild option and hit CTRL-Q. Do this on every part you make, every assembly, and every drawing and you will ensure the highest quality model and drawing geometry possible.
Comments