Allow selection of Tool Components in the Combine dialog

[RogerInHawaii]

I suggest that the Combine feature allow for the selection of Components as Tool Bodies.

I have numerous situations where my objective is the Combining of ALL the Bodies within a particular Component. Now, the Target clearly has to be a single Body. But in order to specify ALL of the Bodies within the Component that I'm dealing with as being Tool Bodies I need to either individually select each and every Body via the Browser OR I can make sure that only the selected Component is visible on the screen and use a Bounding Selection Rectangle to implicitly select all of the Bodies. That certainly works and I will  indeed get the combined Body that I desire.

BUT, later on, some days or weeks later I, or someone else, makes a change to that Component. The change might result in some of those prior Bodies no longer existing or it might result in new Bodies being created as part of the Component, or both of those kinds of changes.  The problem then becomes that the Combine operation will NOT in fact do a combine of all the CURRENT Bodies in that Component. In the case of JUST new Bodies being created the combined Body will be missing those newly created Bodies, but NO WARNING will be generated for the Combine feature. In the case of one or more of the previously existing Bodies now (after the Component edit) no longer existing, the Combined Body MIGHT rely on cache to create those missing bodies, making it LOOK like it's all OK, but a WARNING will be created for the Combine feature in the timeline.

In EITHER CASE the combined Body will NOT be what was intended, namely the combination of ALL of the Bodies of the Component. And the reason why that is true is because the Combine Feature remembers only the list of Bodies that were chosen.

ALLOW BOTH BODIES AND COMPONENTS to be chosen

If, on the other hand, the Combine Dialog allowed for the selection of not just specified Bodies but ALSO the selection of Components, this problem would disappear. The Combine Feature would remember the set of specifically selected Bodies (either via the Browser or via a Bounding Selection Rectangle) AND the set of selected Components. It would NOT remember the list of Bodies IMPLICITLY selected via the selected Components. Rather, each time that the Combine Feature is processed it would look at each selected Component and gather up the entire set of Bodies for that Component (and likewise for all its sub-components). The combined Body would always be what is desired regardless of any changes that might have been made to the related Components

By taking that approach, of allowing BOTH Bodies AND Components to be selected as Tools, the Combine Feature would work no matter what changes may have been made to the associated Components.