With a class based definition of CAD assemblies in a web configurator there are two main strategies to choose from: Property driven or interaction driven assembly
Property driven CAD assembly
With the property driven approach there is a set of properties that are known in advance and can describe the entire assembly. The number of parts and layouts can vary but its all driven from changes in the same properties.
PRO: The benefit of this is that the entire assembly can be controlled with a single procedural sequence which can start from an empty assembly (see docs on how component handler and clearAll works).
CON: The weakness of the property driven approach is that it cannot store states in the different components (like changing a specific size).
Interaction driven CAD assembly
With the interaction based approach the assembly is generate through a set of predefined methods on the assembly class (eg. assembly.addDoor(…), assembly.configureSection(..). These methods needs to be created by the person implementing the class based configuration and carefully shaped to match the intended interactions.
PRO: This enables complex configuration guided with the mouse (drag and drop configuration) and gives a lot of freedom to the user.
CON: The drawback is the increased skill requirements and time needed for the person implementing the interaction based approach. The predefined methods need to hide complexity and handle all the edge cases of all potential mouse interactions, yet still produce a valid assembly.
