Model Check and Assembly Steps

Two tools in the Assembly view help you before you cut and while you build: the Model check looks for mistakes in the model, and Steps gives an order to assemble it in.

Model check

The Model check box lists what it found, errors first, each with an Error or Warning badge, the part’s label (its number and place) and the amount in the job’s unit. It finds:

Overlap — two parts occupy the same space (more than 0.05 mm on every axis);
Floating — a part, or a group of parts, that does not touch the rest of the model: it must lie on another part or be at most 3 mm away from it. The body is the heaviest group standing on the floor;
Sticking out — a back panel, plinth or front that reaches outside the cabinet where it should not;
A mark under another part — a pocket hole, hole, hinge cup or runner mark on a face that another part is pressed onto (a pocket hole there is an error, the others a warning).

Click an item and the parts are highlighted in the drawing, the table and the cutting plan. When there is nothing to report the box says No problems found: no parts overlap, nothing floats and nothing sticks out. It also says what it cannot see: the check looks at the part boxes only, and cannot tell which way a door opens.

On a model you imported from SketchUp the check reads real-world models more gently and adds three findings. A corner where two boards pass through each other’s thickness (a finger or box joint) and a rod in its socket are recognised and stay silent; a small overlap that could be a joint is a warning — probably a joint, check the fit. A board that cuts another one in two is always an error. A drawer on runners is not floating. And parts that are identical to their siblings but are attached to fewer things (odd), or stop a few millimetres short of what the siblings touch (short), are flagged.

Steps

Switch Drawing | Steps to Steps. Each step is a card: Step 3 · Carcass – top (the group, the drawer number and a phase word), an exploded detail with the parts of the step highlighted and the parts they sit against in grey, the parts to fit with their labels and counts, and Already in place: n. Finding a part from here takes you back to the drawing.

For a furniture template the order is: plinth, then the carcass (the frame first, then top or rail), the back panel, the shelves, drawer 1 to n, and the fronts; a box goes walls, bottom, lid. For an imported model the order comes from what the model contains and how the parts sit against each other, not from the order of the file. Every part is in exactly one step. The steps are printed in the Build Pack before the material list.

Use both as a second pair of eyes: check the order and the findings against your own design, and the sizes against your cutting plan, before you cut.

FAQ

What does the Model check look at?

The boxes of the parts: whether two parts overlap, whether a part is not attached to the rest of the model, and whether a back panel, plinth or front sticks out of the cabinet. For a model with marked holes it also checks that no mark lies under a part pressed onto that face.

Does it know which way a door opens?

No. The check looks at the part boxes only; it cannot tell which way a door opens.

I imported a model and see Warnings that say probably a joint — is that a problem?

A small overlap that looks like a joint is shown as a warning, not an error: check the fit. Recognised joints — finger-joint corners, a rod in its socket — are not reported at all.

Where are the assembly steps?

In the Assembly view, switch Drawing | Steps to Steps. The same steps are printed in the Build Pack PDF.