CATIA TIPS

Using an Offset Constraint When Things are in Contact in an Assembly

Positioning components in a V5 assembly involves the use of constraints that define how different component of that assembly relate to one another. Two very common types of these constraints are:

Contact Constraint

A Contact constraint places two faces of two components in contact with one another. In other words, the separation is always zero.

Offset Constraint

An Offset constraint establishes a "gap" between two faces of two components of an assembly. The distance can be later modified.

So why would you consider using an Offset Constraint when things are in Contact in an Assembly?
If you want to have two components in contact with one another yet have the flexibility to later create a "gap" between them, it may be wise to create an Offset constraint with a ZERO offset value.

This allows you to easily change this value to a non-zero number at any time.
If you initially created a Contact constraint and wanted to do this, you would need to first delete the Contact constraint and create an Offset constraint. So doing this as described above can be a time saver!