CAD Assembly

CAD Assembly is the logical capability of placing parts and sub-assemblies into a structured, constrained product structure that captures positioning, mating relationships, and motion degrees of freedom. It is the in-CAD reflection of the engineering BOM and the basis for downstream interference checks, kinematic studies, and visualization.

What it covers

• Mates and joints (coincident, concentric, distance, angle, gear, cam).
• Top-down design — driving sub-part dimensions from a master assembly skeleton.
• In-context references with associativity to source parts.
• Large-assembly handling — lightweight loading, simplified representations, sub-assembly substitution.
• Interference and clearance checking across the assembly tree.

Relationships (see sidebar)

• Supports the CAD Design process.
• Implemented by systems like Dassault CATIA, SolidWorks, PTC Creo, and Siemens NX.