Inserting a Smart Object

e-Learning Material:
A friendly set of e-Tutorial videos and documents on Smart Objects has been created and is available on the Customer Care Corporate site (e-Learning home page). Take a look at the list of the available educational documents on Smart Objects here: e-Learning: Smart Objects.
Enjoy your lessons!

Smart Objects can be positioned into the model in one of the following ways:

Explicitly using the Insert command
Dragging and dropping the Smart Object from the Library Palette
Double clicking on the bitmap (or using the shortcut menu) in the Library Palette
Right-clicking on the Smart Object icon in the Model Structure and selecting Insert in the context menu

When inserting the Smart Object, all mandatory geometric references have to be selected.

The exposed dimensional parameters can be modified only if no configuration tables are defined; otherwise, it is possible to select a different configuration.

When positioning the Smart Object, an anchor point is usually to be selected: an "Anchor Handle" is displayed in this case.

Note

The selection of the face is always parametric: if you modify the orientation of the selected face, the orientation of the inserted Smart Object will change accordingly
The selection of the point is never parametric, even if the point you select is parametric (a datum point or a special point of a parametric entity)
If the origin of the base profile of the Smart Object is free (it has two freedom degrees on its plane) and the entity on which you snap while inserting the Smart Object is usable in a Coincident constraint (a datum line, a solid edge or a line belonging to a profile), a Coincident constraint is automatically created inside the profile.

In the case of Smart Shapes and Smart Profiles it is also possible to choose if the Smart Object has to be added to the model, subtracted from the model or added as a new object (Insertion mode).

Smart Shapes and face selection

When inserting a Smart Shape, if you move the cursor over a face, no matter whether you click on it or not, that face will be automatically selected even if you click in an empty zone of the graphics area. The orientation of the Smart Object will be changed accordingly to that face.

e-Learning on Smart Objects