FEATURE OPERATIONS

Feature operations are performed on the basic form features to smooth corners, create tapers, and unite or subtract certain solids from other solids. Some of the feature operations are shown below.

Let us see the different types of feature operation commands in NX5 and the function of each command.


TYPES OF FEATURE OPERATIONS
The features operations used in NX include Edge blend, Face blend, Soft blend, Chamfer,Hollow, Instance, Sew, and Patch. Let us see some of the important commands in details. Unlike the NX3 version, some of the feature operations have been removed in NX5. For example, the Taper operation has been removed. In addition, changes have been made to the way a few
operations are performed. For example, the Trim Body operation no longer supports solid bodies as tools for trimming. Some of the feature operations such as Split Body cannot be accessed from the INSERT menu and have to be opened using the Toolbar.


Edge Blend

An Edge Blend is a radius blend that is tangent to the blended faces. This feature modifies a solid body by rounding selected edges. This command can be found under Insert → Design Feature. You can also do a face
blend.

Chamfer
The chamfer function operates very similarly to the blend function by adding or subtracting material relative to whether the edge is an outside chamfer or an inside chamfer. This command can also be found under the Insert → Design Feature menu.
You can preview the result of chamfering and if you are not happy with the result you can undo the operation.

Thread
Threads can only be created on cylindrical faces. The Thread function lets you create symbolic or detailed threads (on solid bodies) that are right or left handed, external or internal, parametric,and associative threads on  cylindrical faces such as holes, bosses, or cylinders. It also lets you select the method of creating the threads such as cut, rolled, milled or ground. You can create different types of threads such as metric, unified, acme and so on. To use this command, go to Insert → Design Feature

 Trim Body
A solid body can be trimmed by a sheet body or a datum plane. You can use the Trim Body function to trim a solid body with a sheet body and at the same
time retain parameters and associativty. To use this command, go to 
Insert → Trim

Split Body
A solid body can be split into two just like trimming it. It can be done by a plane or a sheet body. Click on the icon in the Form Feature Toolbar as shown to open the Split Body dialog box.

Instance
A Design feature or a detail feature can be made into dependent copies in the form of an array. It can be Rectangular or Circular array or just a Mirror. This particularly helpful feature saves plenty of time and modeling when you similar features for example threads of gear or holes on amounting plate, etc. This command can be found by going to Insert → Associative Copy →

Instance Feature.