Part Modeling > Part Modeling > Edit Features > Merge > About the Merge Feature
About the Merge Feature
You can use the Merge tool to merge two quilts by intersecting or joining them or merge more than two quilts by joining them. The resultant quilt becomes the primary quilt and inherits the ID of the primary quilt. If you delete the merge feature, the original quilts remain.
You can use one of the following methods on the Merge tab to merge two quilts:
Use Intersect to create a quilt that consists of the trimmed portions of two intersecting quilts and for quilts with coincident one-sided edges.
Use Join if the edges of one quilt lie on the surfaces of the other quilt.
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In Assembly mode, you can merge only assembly-level quilts. If you want to create component-level merge features, you must first activate the component, and then merge the quilts in that component.
To select more that two quilts to be merged, the quilts should have adjacent one-sided edges.
You cannot select intersecting quilts if you merge more than two quilts.
You can merge more than two quilts only if all the edges of the selected quilts are adjacent to each other and do not overlap.
Parental Hierarchy of Quilts
When you merge two quilts, both these reference quilts become the parents of the merge feature. By default, the first quilt you select becomes the primary reference quilt, which determines the ID of the merged quilt. This ID of the primary quilt is important for dependents of the primary quilt and for operations such as suppress and resume or layer blanking. For example, if you suppress the primary reference quilt by selecting it on the Model Tree, the merged quilt is also suppressed.
You can set any quilt in the quilt collector to be the primary quilt by selecting that quilt and clicking .
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The primary quilt is the first quilt listed under Quilts on the References tab.
If you select more than two quilts to be merged, the Merge tool merges the quilts in their order of appearance in the quilt collector. For example, the primary quilt, that is, the first quilt in the quilt collector is merged with the second quilt and forms the primary quilt. The third quilt is then merged with the primary quilt and so on until all the quilts are merged.
The order in which the quilts appear in the quilt collector is important to perform a successful merge operation, that is, the quilts in the quilt collector must be sequentially arranged based on their adjacency. For example, if the quilt collector has five quilts, the merge result of quilts one and two should be adjacent to quilt three and the merge result of quilts one, two, and three should be adjacent to quilt four and so on.
Accessing the Merge Tool
To access the Merge tool, select two or more quilts and click Model > Merge.
You can use one of the following methods to select the quilts:
Select the quilts in the graphics window.
Click an empty area in the graphics window and drag the pointer over the required quilts to select them. This operation is called region selection. When you use region selection, the required quilts must be completely inside the region to be selected. The selected quilts are sorted in the quilt collector based on their feature number on the Model Tree.
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You can use region selection only when you are within the Merge tool.
You can also use the Search Tool to select the quilts. To access the search tool, click Tools > Find. When you use the Search Tool to select quilts, the quilts are added to the quilt collector based on their chronological order in the Model Tree.
Error Reporting
The quilts in the quilt collector are merged sequentially. However, the first quilt that fails to merge with the previous quilt is marked with a red dot in the quilt collector, for example, . Subsequent quilts are not merged. If the Merge tool encounters an error, the error messages are displayed in the Troubleshooter dialog box and in the message area. To know why a particular quilt failed the merge operation, right-click the failed quilt and click What's wrong in the shortcut menu. The Troubleshooter dialog box appears and displays the reason why that quilt could not be merged. You can remove the failed quilt from the quilt collector or reorder the quilt in the quilt collector and continue with the merge process.
The merge feature could fail for one of the following reasons:
Selected quilts do not have adjacent edges.
Selected quilts are intersecting or overlapping.
Dynamic Preview
When you enter the Merge tool with more than two quilts selected, dynamic preview switches off. To switch on dynamic preview, click on the Merge tab. If you switch on dynamic preview, the graphics window is updated when you add or remove quilts to or from the merge feature. If the Merge tool encounters an error, a preview of the already merged quilts is shown. For example, if the quilt collector has five quilts and the third one fails the merge operation, then a preview of the first and second quilts is shown in the graphics window.
Undo and Redo
Undo and redo operations are available for all operations that you perform while the Merge tab is open. However, if you quit the Merge tool, you can only undo the merge operation as a whole and not operations performed within the Merge tool. For example, if you select a quilt to be added to the quilt collector, you can undo this operation within the Merge tool. After you quit the Merge tool, you cannot use the undo operation to remove the quilt from the quilt collector.