General File Options

Select to orient large designs while they are loading.

Select to open external components as lightweight graphics representations when opening SCDOC files. This option is disabled when Load model in background is unchecked.

Select to ignore external components whose SCDOC file has the Read-only property checked ON. This property can be set at the OS level or, more likely, by a PDM system.

• The option is disabled by default, which means that modified read-only references are versioned when saved.
• When enabled, modified read-only references are skipped when saving and a warning is displayed.

Open or insert a non-SpaceClaim assembly as multiple documents. When you save your design, click References to adjust where the documents are saved.

Select this option if a design contains an external component that was previously imported and converted to the SpaceClaim .scdoc format, and you want to re-use that previously imported file.

Immediately save an opened or inserted non-SpaceClaim file to an SCDOC file. (If you do not select this option, then opened or inserted files are not saved until you save the design.) Make sure that Save imported document and load as lightweight is NOT checked if you do not want to save any imported documents.

Improve a file when it is opened or inserted. You can choose to have SpaceClaim Clean and simplify geometry, Stitch nearby surfaces together, and Find coincident surfaces within a Tolerance that you specify. De-selecting this option imports the file without improvements so the file appears more quickly, but you may have to perform the improvements manually.

If you select this option, then you can select one of the following load methods:

• Save imported document and load as lightweight: When this option is selected, the imported file will be opened in memory. An SCDOC file will be created for each part in the file, saved, and then loaded as lightweight, which frees the heavyweight data from memory. You will see an entirely lightweight assembly. If you then right-click one of the lightweight components and select Load Component, then the part will be fully loaded very quickly. Also, this method displays the color of imported parts. The methods below do not. PMI information cannot be imported with a lightweight model.

• Assembly structure and lightweight geometry: This method imports the document just like in the above option, creating lightweight parts in SpaceClaim, but no SCDOC files are created or saved. As a result, this option uses less memory than the above method when importing the document. However, if you use Load Component on one of the lightweight components, the entire document must be re-imported in order to get all of the data for the component. Loading the component can be very slow. This method is recommended if you intend only to use the lightweight facets and not the heavyweight geometry or if you are working with smaller imported documents. Since an SCDOC is not created and saved, you are able to toggle Off the display of these lightweight components using the check box in the Structure Tree.

• Assembly structure only: Only the component name and hierarchy is created. No lightweight facets are created.

Select to open or insert hidden components within CATIA v5, Parasolid, Creo Parametric, SOLIDWORKS, and SketchUp files, and turn off their visibility in the Structure tree.

Select the objects to be imported:

• Free curves

• Points

• Planes

• Axes

• Coordinate systems

• Object names

Select to improve a file when it is exported. This allows you to turn off the behavior if you don't want to merge faces and edges before a model is exported, such as exporting to Rhino.

Select to save components that have their visibility turned off in your design as hidden components when you save them as any other file type. This option is supported for ACIS, Rhino, SketchUp, and SAT/SAB formats.

Select to export CATIA files with object names.

Select to split periodic faces when exporting the files.