What is a Component?

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A component  —  also named component part or part  —  is a set of objects gathered in a single entity that can either be handled as a black box or edited individually.

Typically, components  —  and components collected into sub-assemblies  —  are the bricks assemblies are composed of, but components can also be used to logically organize the structure of a model.

There is no limit to the number of objects that are included in a component. They can be solids, parametric and non-parametric entities, other components.

An assembly may include several occurrences of a component and these copies may also be at different levels of the assembly hierarchy. Modifying any of these occurrences of the component implies automatically propagating the change to all the other copies.

A component is one of the following:

• A model imported into the current model from an external file (by using the command  InsertComponent X-Reference)
• An assembly of entities and/or components defined as such in the current model (by using the command InsertComponentNew). In this case, you can save the components created in the current model to an external file (by using the command  ModifyComponentMake X-Reference). It is worth remarking that the external files corresponding to the X-Reference (components) are standard models that can be opened and edited individually exactly as any other model. There is no difference between a model representing an assembly and a model representing a component.
• If the component is saved to an external file, it can then be used in several different assemblies. In addition, the component can subsequently be modified by opening the external file itself, or by making changes within the assembly and choosing to save those changes back to the external file. Changes saved to the external file appear in all the assemblies which reference that file, making it very easy to automatically update all the other assemblies.
• If the component is not saved to an external file, it can only be used within the current assembly. It can't be used in other assemblies. Therefore, although not specifically required, you should generally save all components to external files.

Components possess certain attributes, which can be displayed by right-clicking the component in either the model or the Model Structure to display the context menu, selecting Edit Properties, and then selecting the Component category of the Entity Properties:

• Name  —  Identifies the component in the Model Structure and in the spreadsheet, to refer to any specific variables of that component.
• File  —  Identifies the name of the external file in which the component is saved (recommended but not required).
• Read only  —  When selected, sets the component as read-only. Trying to modify a read-only component, you get a warning message; modifications are still allowed, but you are not enabled to save the modified component until this option is unchecked.
• Local copy  —  When selected, the model of the assembly will include both a reference to the external file containing the component, as well as an entire copy of the component. When the local copy is available, any modification of the component will not affect the external file. In addition, you can load the assembly even if the external file isn't currently available. On the other hand, assemblies including local copies of components result in larger file size.

A component can be modified in either of two ways:

• In its external reference file.
• Directly from the assembly to which the component belongs.

As a general rule, components can be positioned using the same methods as positioning any other solid.

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