how to combine components
If the components are imported, you must first break the link.
If you want to connect components you must use "Joint".
it is not clear what you are trying to do. You say: "can components be combined so when I move the base part all other parts move too?" That is what Joints are for. If you just want to move a component and have associated components move with it, create a Rigid Joint between them. However, if what you really mean is "can I make it so that I can re-use an entire set of components?" then the answer is different- you would want to make a sub-assembly out of that set of components (still using Rigid Joints to hold them together). If this reuse is within the same design, all the components can be local to that design. If you want to re-use this sub-assembly in another design, then use an external design for the entire sub-assembly, then it can be Inserted into multiple other top-level designs.
Jeff Strater
Engineering Director
What you have right now is 1 component and two bodies. The bodies cannot be combined, because they are overlapping. You say "I now want to join A to B and align both Z and XY". Do you want to align the two bodies to each other? If so, why did you create Body2 in a different location? Or, to put it differently, why did you move the bodies? If I delete the two Body Moves from the timeline, the bodies are then aligned, in a way that I assume you want:
then you can combine the two bodies into a single body. Is that what you are after? I've attached a version of the design where they are combined.
Jeff Strater
Engineering Director
@conjured2018 wrote:
in my work, i design a cap say a hat for a man. in another design I have the man or the head. I then save as the cap and open in the head design. in head design i need to align hat along xy and z planes. this workflow is causing smoke coming from your ears, right?
There are multiple ways to approach this. However, both involve using components not bodies. You should avoid trying to use multiple bodies unless the intention is to use Combine to turn them into a single body. For the most part, you should strive to have a single body per component.
If you design the head and the hat all in the same design, I would create a component for each, and build them in place from the start (create the hat so that it is already in the correct place on the head). Then, assuming the hat is not intended to move, create an As-Built Rigid Joint to keep them together. And apply a Ground to one of the (presumably the head).
If you design the hat and the head in separate designs, you then insert both into a top-level design. Assuming that the components were not designed in reference to a global coordinate system (so that they are already in the correct position and orientation), you would still Ground the head, and then use a regular Joint to position the hat on the head. This is where your example gets problematic. Joints need some geometry to use to determine position and orientation. For normal "mechanical" designs, this geometry is readily available (for example a bolt and a hole - use the cylinder for both the hole and the bolt to correctly position the bolt in the hole). But for an "organic" model like a head or a hat, there is unlikely to be convenient geometry, so you may have to add such geometry to both the head and hat to help position the Joint. Sketch geometry is excellent for that purpose.
Jeff Strater
Engineering Director
