Creating assembly features is like creating part features with certain differences and restrictions. You can create assembly features such as datum planes, axes and points, curves, and coordinate systems, or assembly features that remove material such as holes, cuts, and slots. These features belong to the assembly and not to a part. Assembly features display when the assembly is retrieved. You cannot create a feature that adds material to the assembly.

Assembly datums are particularly useful for the following:

Assembly datum features are labeled as ADTM# (for example, ADTM1, ADTM2, ADTM3), ACSYS#, APNT#, and so on. When you write relations using an assembly datum plane, the system stores them with the assembly.

You can create assembly datum features at any time before assembling the first part. You can also create a new coordinate system and a set of three orthogonal datum planes for the assembly.

You can create assembly features other than datum features, such as:

Perform feature and component operations using the shortcut menu. Additional commands are in Operations and Cut & Surface groups.