Make part from solid which includes all the features to create a new unlinked part

[JoshuaYatesBriTec]

In a multi-solid part. You can "Make Part" from a selected solid to create a new part, but this part is linked to the original file meaning any modifications (on a feature which was done in the original file) needs to be done in the original file.

What I would like is to create a "Make Unlinked Part" which makes a new file of the solid but contains the features used to make the part. This would be it's own separate instance. Any dimensions which used another solid to work out it's geometry could just pop up with a "re-dimension" message of sorts.

[jtylerbc]

Where would this be useful?  If I have a part that I don't want to end up linked to a multisolid, my tendency would be to not model it in the multisolid to begin with.  I'm having trouble imagining a scenario where it would be helpful to model something initially in a multisolid, then disassociate it later.  

[JoshuaYatesBriTec]

Hi @jtylerbc,

This idea was based on my current work flow. I design maybe 100-200 unique products per year.

In 1 design I might have 10 solids, some are machined parts, some would be laser cut and folded parts.

In design 159. I notice I can use one of the machined parts from design 1 but I need to tweak that machined part to make it fully compatible with design 159. If I was able to "Extract" the solid from design 1 and have it maintain all of it's editable features in its own instance, I can alter 1 or 2 dimensions and I now have a perfect machined part for design 159.

Instead with the current workflow, I would have to just re-draw the machined part from scratch.

[jtylerbc]

Okay, in that case I can see the application, but I also see a significant problem with implementing a solution like this.  Often the definition of a part in a multisolid is dependent on other related parts.  The ability to do that is the biggest advantage of multisolid modeling to begin with.  As a result, it might not even be possible to extract an "independent" part from such a model, simply based on the way it was defined by the user.  

As a simple example of the problem I'm talking about, think about a scenario where a solid is built by extruding a sketch on the face of another solid.  How would the "Extractor" tool address the sketch plane?  I suppose it could create a work plane, but then how would it define the work plane itself?  It seems like it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to have a tool like this create parts that make sense on their own.  Best case, you'd likely end up with a bunch of grounded work features, which would make the resulting part a pain to edit, and likely would end up requiring manual redefining anyway (somewhat defeating the purpose of the Extractor tool).

In cases where the part is definable without the surrounding parts, you might be able to copy the multisolid and simply delete out the unrelated features.  That might give you a way to deal with this using currently available tools.  It might only work situationally, but there's a good chance the tool you're asking for would have similar limitations.