Managing absolute occurrences (in-context editing)

An absolute occurrence is a specific instance of a component or assembly in a structure. It may be independent of the top-level assembly and only meaningful in the context of a lower level assembly. For example, you may have four occurrences of a wheel in the design of a vehicle; you can label one of those occurrences as left rear wheel, which is an absolute occurrence of the wheel. When you open a window containing the structure, each absolute occurrence is represented by a single line.

To create an absolute occurrence, you edit the occurrence line in context with respect to the assembly in which the absolute occurrence data is meaningful. Hence, the creation of absolute occurrences is sometimes referred to as editing in context.

Note

Absolute occurrences are not the same as appearances. Absolute occurrences are generated when you build the structure (edit in context) and do not have associated spatial information.

A component or subassembly that appears in more than one product structure can have the same absolute occurrence in each structure.

You cannot create absolute occurrences directly, only by converting a relative occurrence and editing its properties. Similarly, you cannot delete absolute occurrences directly. You cannot create absolute occurrences on substitutes.

An absolute occurrence may appear more than once in the structure, depending on the context in which you created it.