OK, I figured it out (I had to go back and read the project documents to get the rational behind this new option and why it was big deal for some of our customers).
Anyway, what happened is that back in NX 5.0 we introduced the so-called 'Selection Rules', starting first with the 'Curve Rules' like 'Single Curve' or 'Tangent Curves' when a function asked you to select curves/edges for say an extrude or an edge blend. And then in NX 7.5 we added 'Body Rules', like 'Single Body' or 'Bodies in Group', when for example you're asked to select the 'Tool' bodies when doing a Boolean operation. And it was this 'Body Rule', particularly when doing a Boolean Subtract that caused a problem for some people.
As you may or may not realize, when doing a Boolean 'Subtract' you can use either a Solid or a Sheet body for either the 'Target' or the 'Tool' body, but in the case of a surface being used as a 'Tool' body it must pass completely through the 'Target' body so that it will basically cut it into two or more pieces. Now under normal conditions, like when selecting 'Single Bodies' you can set the 'Type Filter' to just 'Solid Bodies' if you wanted to make sure that you did NOT select a Sheet body, which often was not something that most people wanted to do. However, once we introduced the 'Body Rule', one of the options allows you to select a 'Feature Group' to define your 'Tool' bodies, but that 'Group' might consist of BOTH Solid and Sheet bodies and you may still NOT want to include the Sheet bodies and of course, at this moment the 'Type Filter' is of no use since what you're really selecting is the 'Group' and not the individual bodies in that group and besides, you might actually want both types (under certain conditions). But when you didn't there was no way to control that, at least not until NX 9.0 where we added this option to the 'Body Rule', that's the new icon with the picture of the surface on it, which when toggled ON will include BOTH Solid AND Sheet bodies, but when toggled OFF will only grab the Solid bodies in the Feature Group and ignore the Sheet bodies. By default this option is toggled OFF since the consensus is that including Sheet bodies when selecting a Feature Group is generally not the norm, particularly for modeling type operations, like Booleans.
Anyway, I hope this clarifies what this NX 9.0 enhancement does and why it might be useful to you. However, I suspect that unless you've encountered this problem of using 'mixed' Feature Groups somewhere, that you can just ignore it.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
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