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<\/FONT><\/P> Many \u201cbest practice\u201d concepts for MBM are transferable between CAD packages. Best practice itself is a continuum from the most conservative, risk-averse \u201csafety first\u201d attitude on one extreme to high-risk, speed and ease of use centered philosophy on the other extreme. MBM best practice mostly boils down to balancing functionality you are willing to give up against a little convenience. MBMis not inherently risky, but file management, associativity, and editability can all become more complicated in MBM scenarios.<\/FONT><\/P> <\/FONT><\/P> You may hear the argument that complex assemblies can be replaced with just a single part file that contains all the parts right inside it. While there are CAD software packages that are intended to work this way, Solid Edge is not one of them. Solid Edge has an assembly environment for a lot of reasons. MBM is not going to replace assemblies, but will enable you to do more with part design, enable certain functions that use tool bodies or external references, and may help you get to an assembly more quickly.<\/FONT><\/P><\/p>\n You might be thinking \u201cmulti-body modeling? I don\u2019t need no stinking multi-body modeling.\u201d And you might be right. Or maybe you do need it, you just don\u2019t know it yet. To be fair, 10 years ago I was a big opponent of MBM. My argument was that you could do everything you needed to do in assemblies. I felt that MBM was just a sloppy shortcut, a lazy method, or a cheat. I still think that there are a lot of \u201cillegitimate\u201d uses of MBM, but I recognize some of the benefits. I recognize that the word \u201cillegitimate\u201d sounds pretty judgmental, but I do believe that some methods have more value than others. In the course of these blog posts I\u2019ll lay out my reasoning, and you can make the decision for yourself which methods you will adopt and which you avoid.<\/FONT><\/P> <\/FONT><\/P> Is there anything that you absolutely should not<\/STRONG> use MBM for? Generally, don\u2019t get caught in the trap of using a multi-body part where you should use an assembly. There are several things you can\u2019t do with MBM, such as the motion of mechanisms, BOMs, drawings, etc. I believe that if you are going to use MBM techniques for something, you need to have a plan. Your plan might be to just investigate, or experiment. Or it may be a master model approach. Or possibly you have a body you need to use as a tool to create a shape in another body, or maybe the multi-body state is a temporary state before the finished solid model.<\/FONT><\/P><\/p>\n There are many possible reasons for using MBM methods:<\/FONT><\/P> <\/FONT><\/P> Multi-body methods in Solid Edge have existed for years, but it wasn\u2019t until ST5 (2012) that Solid Edge really went through and revamped all of their functionality. The result is that Solid Edge\u2019s implementation of multi-body modeling has a few extra layers in it that I haven\u2019t seen elsewhere. Solid Edge gives you more control, and when you consider that there are Ordered and Synchronous implications to multi-body modeling, there is a lot to know about Edge\u2019s MBM methods.<\/FONT><\/P> <\/FONT><\/P> In this post I hope to have whetted your appetite if you are not a current MBM user. In the next couple of posts, I’ll show more detail about what features are available that use these methods. I think you’ll find that the Solid Edge implementation offers you a lot of options that other CAD software may not. In the meantime, it would be great to hear from some of you that are already using these techniques, what sort of work you are using them for. Pix are always welcome in the comments!
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<\/span>Is there anything for which you absolutely must<\/STRONG> use MBM? Continuous shapes between parts is one thing that comes to mind. You design a car body as a single part. You don\u2019t design the awkwardly shaped rear fender, then try to make the door flow smoothly into the fender. You model the entire car shape a single part, then break it into multiple bodies, then separate those bodies into individual parts. This is a common technique used in many types of design known as \u201cmaster model\u201d. We\u2019ll get back to more detail on this later on.<\/FONT><\/P><\/p>\n
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<\/span>These are just some of the common uses of MBM, I\u2019m quite sure there are as many reasons for using it as there are people who use it.<\/FONT><\/P><\/p>\n
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