The design tree

The design tree details everything that goes into creating your parts. The following screenshot shows the design tree for the part we explored in this chapter. We can simplify the design tree by splitting it into four parts:

The four parts of the design tree are as follows:

• Commands: These are the commands that are used to build the model. This includes sketches, features, and any other supporting commands that were added during the modeling phase (since we are building a 3D model). In the preceding screenshot, two features were used to create the model, as indicated by Commands. The first is Boss-Extrude1 and the second is Cut-Extrude1. Note that these commands are listed in the order of when they were applied.
• Default Reference Geometries: The SOLIDWORKS canvas can be understood as endless space. These Default Reference Geometries are what can fix our model to a specific point or plane. Without these, our model will be floating in an endless space without any fixtures. Throughout this book, we will start our models from these default references. There are three planes (Front, Right, and Top), in addition to the origin.
• Materials: Realistically, all of the artifacts we have around us are made of a certain material. Some examples of materials include plastic, iron, steel, rubber, and so on. SOLIDWORKS allows us to assign what structural material the part will be made of. In the preceding screenshot, the Material is classed as <not specified>.
• Others: This section includes other aspects of our model's creation, such as History, Sensors, Annotations, and Solid Bodies. We will explore them later in this book.

The design tree helps us to easily identify how the model was built and in what sequence. This makes it easier for us to modify existing models. Now, let's look at the canvas.