Small details that are unimportant to the analysis should not be included in the solid model, since they will only make your model more complicated than necessary. However, for some structures, "small" details such as fillets or holes can be locations of maximum stress, and might be very important, depending on your analysis objectives. You must have an adequate understanding of your structure's expected behavior in order to make competent decisions concerning how much detail to include in your model.

In some cases, only a few minor details will disrupt a structure's symmetry. You can sometimes ignore these details (or, conversely, treat them as being symmetric) in order to gain the benefits of using a smaller symmetric model. You must weigh the gain in model simplification against the cost in reduced accuracy when deciding whether or not to deliberately ignore unsymmetric features of an otherwise symmetric structure.