Deleting Elements

There are several ways to delete elements from a model. Depending on the case, it may be possible to delete groups of dependent objects or eliminate isolated objects from the model's structure, if possible. The system also allows to automatically trace the objects unused downstream in the model, and delete them.

The Delete Command

The command is available, upon selecting one or multiple elements.

It may also be called from the contextual menu of selected elements.

The command deletes selected elements (3D or 2D). When selected elements are deleted, their parent elements can also be deleted automatically, upon the condition that the latter are not referenced anywhere else in the 3D model.

When the command is called for the selected 3D element(s), there are two possible scenarios.

If the selected element(s) has neither dependents nor parent elements not referenced anywhere else otherwise, then the deletion will be instant and without any prompts. If the above condition doesn't hold, then, once the command is called, the Delete Elements dialog window will appear.

In the left-hand side of the dialog window, you will be able to select one of the possible options of the command's function:

•Delete Selected Elements and all related Elements.
If this option is chosen, then the selected elements will be deleted together with all their dependents.

oTo have the unreferenced parent elements (if any) deleted too, you shall enable the Delete unused parent elements checkbox. If there are workplanes among such elements, those will be deleted together with their respective pages.

oIf some of the selected or dependent 2D objects are named, then the additional Don't delete named 2D elements checkbox is available. With this checkbox is enabled, the found named 2D objects will be excluded from the deletion list.

oWhen you delete layout elements (schematic images of 3D fragments on the assembly workplanes) the Delete 3D Fragment when deleting its projection checkbox becomes available. You can delete 3D fragment that is linked with the deleted layout element.

oWhen you delete a 3D fragment, which has a layout, the Delete all projections of 3D Fragment checkbox becomes available. It allows to delete all its schematic images from all workplanes.

oThe Keep position of mated elements checkbox is available, when deleting mates. Enabling this checkbox retains mated elements' positions after deleting a mate. Otherwise, mated elements return to positions, which they had before creating a deleted mate.

In some cases, geometry or elements of deleted fragments can be left in the scene. For example, if extrusion was created using external profile from the fragment document, the profile and the extrusion will be left in the assembly after fragment deletion.

Another example: when two elements are connected using LCS-connector, the connector will be left in assembly after one of the elements deletion.

Workplanes, nodes and LCS-s remain in a document if their parent element was deleted. Their location is kept according to all transformations. If such object is created using several other objects, and one of the objects is deleted, the link with all other parent objects will break too.

The only exclusion are 2D nodes that define workplane borders. The workplane can’t break links with them.

•Delete only selected elements modifying type of related elements.
This option is available only when selecting 2D elements (for example, graphic lines on a workplane), which have dependent 2D objects. As a result of choosing this option, only selected 2D elements will be deleted. As for children of deleted elements, the system finds an alternative definition for them.

•Exclude selected elements from model tree (by reassigning references of dependent elements to other elements).
When this method is used, the system attempts to switch references of the dependent elements to other model objects. When an operation is deleted, references of its dependent 3D elements are reassigned to the operation that stands before the deleted one in the 3D model tree. This option is available only in the case when the deleted 3D element has both a parent operation and a dependent 3D element.

The list of the elements to be deleted is displayed in the right-hand side of the dialog window. The elements are sorted by types and are placed into the appropriate folders. To view the information on the elements selected for deletion, you can click the Information… button.

If the Show this dialog only with the pressed Shift key checkbox is enabled, then the Delete Elements dialog will not be displayed upon subsequent calls to the command. To display it when the command is called, you will have to additionally hold <Shift>. The command will be working in this way until the user changes this setting or until the end of the current T-FLEX CAD work session.

The Delete Body Command

When a Body is selected (which can be done in the 3D model tree) then instead of the Delete command the contextual menu contains the Delete Body command. This command will delete from the 3D model all the operations which are part of this Body's creation history. Beside that, the command allows to delete parent elements used in this Body's operations.

The Delete Elements dialog pops-up upon calling the Delete Body command in the same way as described for the Delete command above.

The Purge Command

The Purge command serves to delete all 2D or 3D construction elements that were used neither for creating graphic lines of the 2D drawing nor for operations.

Detailed information on this command is available in the Purge section.