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Components

Components group top-level elements — planes, features, bodies, drawings — into named, nestable folders in the Elements pane. Grouping is organizational: it never changes geometry.

  • The pane header's + button adds a component; right-click a component for New component inside.
  • A new component is selected and becomes active (marked with an accent-colored dot): elements you create land inside it. Selecting a component activates it; click the Document row to go back to creating at the root.
  • Contents indent under the component; the triangle collapses/expands them.
  • Drag any top-level row onto a component to move it there (a name tag follows the cursor; or use right-click → Move to). Drop on the Document row to move it back out. Components drag into each other to nest.
  • Hiding a component hides everything inside it, nested components included.
  • Deleting a component keeps its contents — they move to its parent.
  • Export a component straight to STL or STEP from its right-click menu: every body inside it (and its nested components) is written to one file, named after the component.

Units​

Each component can override the length and angle units (select it and use the Component units pickers). Contents inherit through the chain: sketch override → component → parent components → document default.

Graph view​

In the Elements pane's graph view, components draw as smooth, lightly shaded areas encompassing their member nodes rather than as nodes themselves.

The nodes lay themselves out with a force simulation that repels overlaps and spaces things apart. A force-layout toggle (the button beside the List/Graph buttons, shown in graph mode) turns that on or off: leave it on to let a busy graph untangle itself, or turn it off to freeze the layout so it holds still while you read it or drag nodes into place. The type filter at the bottom of the pane applies to both the list and the graph, so hiding a category (say, sketches) thins out either view the same way.

Right-click any node for the same context menu its list row offers — edit the element, add it to a drawing, export a body, move it to a component, roll back to it, or delete it.

Nodes are draggable, and the graph always keeps its flow readable: an element's inputs stay above it and its outputs stay below it. Drag a node past one of its neighbors and the neighbors slide out of the way to preserve that order.

Rolling back​

Right-click any element in the Elements pane and open the Rollback submenu:

  • Rollback to here — see the model as it was just after that element: everything that depends on it (the operations built on it and their results) is hidden, but the element itself stays.
  • Rollback to just before here — hide that element too, so you see the model as it was just before it was added.

Hidden elements are suppressed in the viewport and faded in the pane, without touching your own show/hide toggles. Independent branches stay put, so this follows the element graph rather than the order things were created. While rolled back, a status line at the top of the pane shows where you are; click Done to roll forward again.

Scripting​

local frame = bearcad.component{ name = "Frame" }          -- returns the index
local legs  = bearcad.component{ name = "Legs", parent = frame }
bearcad.move_to_component{ kind = "extrusion", index = 0, component = frame }
bearcad.move_to_component{ kind = "body", index = 0, component = false }  -- back to root
bearcad.set_units{ component = frame, length = "in" }
bearcad.select{ kind = "component", index = frame }
bearcad.count("component")