Assembly Design > Using Assembly > Managing Views > Assembly Zones > About Assembly Zones
  
About Assembly Zones
Zones are regions within models that make large assemblies more manageable. You can use zones to help organize your assembly, as follows:
Control view clipping
Select components in an assembly for a simplified representation
Create component display states
Define envelope parts
Use the Sections tab in the View Manager dialog box to create zones. Each zone is named and stored with the top-level assembly or part.
You can create an assembly zone based on offset distances from a coordinate system, datum plane references, closed assembly feature surfaces, 2-D elements (such as curves) or by specifying a distance from an entity. Zone references can come from any level of the assembly. You can define the coordinate systems, datum planes or surfaces while you create a zone, or you can use preexisting coordinate systems, datum planes, or surfaces.
You can use coordinate systems, flat datum planes, or extruded or revolved surfaces to define what is inside the zone or outside the zone. For example, if you define a zone to include everything on one side of a datum plane, that side is a half-space of the datum plane. You can combine any number of half-spaces. However, if you use more than 6 half-spaces, view clipping is not available.
You can manage a collection of components or assembly areas by using closed surfaces to define the assembly zone boundaries. Sketch a closed section and extrude it to get a surface with capped ends. This closed section, which defines the zone’s boundaries, specifies which components are included in the zone. Components are included in zones as follows:
If a component lies in more than one zone, the system includes it in both zones.
If a component’s bounding box is intersected by a zone, the system includes the component in that zone.
Define zones as follows:
Reference an existing assembly datum plane
Create an assembly datum plane during zone definition
Reference an existing assembly closed quilt
Reference a 2-D element (a plane, curve, or vertex)
Reference a radial distance from a 2-D element
Create an assembly coordinate system during definition
Reference an existing coordinate system
 
* A bounding box highlighting the geometry for selected zones is visible when using Offset CSYS, Inside-Outside, and Half-Space types. However, a bounding box does not appear when using Radial Distance From.