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      <title>Introduction</title>
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      <div class="title_topic2" id="xps10_pagetitle">Introduction</div>
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      <p class="para_topic">The Die Design module provides a suite of specialized tools for the creation of die components used in the manufacture of stamped sheet metal parts. These parts usually exhibit the complex, free form shapes that commonly comprise the body of an automobile or truck. </p>
      <p class="para_topic">Typical die components, such as the trim steel, flange steel, and scrap cutters, may be defined using standard modeling tools and a variety of features. Each of these complicated objects may consist of several hundred such &quot;primitives.&quot; In contrast, Die Design allows these components to be defined as a single feature. This means the shape controls are reduced to a few standard parameters that are familiar to die designers and easy to specify. </p>
      <p class="para_topic">Complete editing capabilities allow the user to quickly make complicated modifications to the component by changing a single parameter. In addition, these features are associative and if the product part changes, the solid body representing the die component is rebuilt accordingly. </p>
      <p class="para_topic">After creation of the feature, subsequent edits automatically reuse the construction data. This results in faster update performance that speeds up the design cycle when iteratively adding tree features, such as holes or ribs, to the main casting. For all Die Design features that utilize the tree structure in the main dialog, construction data is retained and reused, instead of rebuilt, in the current session whenever possible. As a result, performance is significantly faster during most updates of the feature.</p>
      <p class="para_topic">The update performance happens automatically, except for the following:</p>
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            <p class="para_item">During the first edit of the feature in the current session</p>
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            <p class="para_item">If you edit the feature using <b class="uiTerm">Edit with Rollback </b> 
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            <p class="para_item">When the parent geometry and expressions associated to the main casting, or the parameters of the main casting are changed </p>
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            <p class="para_item"> After performing <b class="uiTerm">Suppress/Unsuppress</b> on the main casting
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      <p class="para_topic">Also, if you do a part cleanup of the feature using the <b class="uiTerm">Part Cleanup</b> dialog box, (<b class="uiTerm">File</b>&rarr;<b class="uiTerm">Utilities</b>&rarr;<b class="uiTerm">Part Cleanup</b>) with the <b class="uiTerm">Cleanup Feature Data</b> check box selected, the saved data is deleted.
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      <p class="para_topic">All in all, Die Design provides a more productive and intuitive way to build die components. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
      <p class="para_topic">Die Design is a separately licensed product of NX. </p>
      <p class="para_topic">A Trim Steel example of what can be done in Die Design is shown below.</p>
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      <div class="title_figure">Example of a Trim Steel Component</div>
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      <p class="para_topic">You can think of the final geometric shape as being a sweep of the cross section along a profile representing the trimmed shape. The cross section shown above typically could be generated by intersecting a plane that is normal to the trim profile and the trim direction, with the resultant solid body.</p>
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