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How to Rebuild Only Certain Things in SOLIDWORKS

SOLIDWORKS provides several ways to rebuild, update, or selectively process model features. This is especially useful when working with large parts, complex feature trees, or large assemblies, where rebuilding the entire model can take significant time.

SOLIDWORKS Help: Freezing Features: Official documentation on enabling, dragging, and managing the Freeze Bar in the FeatureManager tree.

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1. Force Rebuild

A Force Rebuild recalculates the active model and its features, even when SOLIDWORKS does not think a rebuild is necessary.

Shortcut

Ctrl + Q

How to Use

1. Open your Part or Assembly.
2. Press Ctrl + Q.
3. SOLIDWORKS rebuilds the model from the feature tree.

When to Use

Use Force Rebuild when:

• Changes don’t appear correctly.
• Features have outdated results.
• External references have changed.
• You suspect the model needs a complete recalculation.
• A normal rebuild doesn’t solve the problem.

Important

Ctrl + Q is not a “rebuild only this feature” command. It forces a broader rebuild of the model.

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2. Regular Rebuild

A regular rebuild updates features that SOLIDWORKS determines need to be recalculated.

Shortcut

Ctrl + B

How to Use

Press:

Ctrl + B

SOLIDWORKS rebuilds the necessary features in the active document.

When to Use

Regular rebuild is useful after:

• Changing dimensions
• Editing sketches
• Modifying features
• Changing configurations
• Updating model references

Ctrl + B vs. Ctrl + Q

Command	Shortcut	Purpose
Rebuild	Ctrl + B	Rebuilds features that need updating
Force Rebuild	Ctrl + Q	Forces a more complete rebuild

Tip: Start with Ctrl + B. Use Ctrl + Q when the model still doesn’t update correctly.

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3. Roll Back the Feature Tree

The Rollback Bar allows you to temporarily move backward through the FeatureManager Design Tree.

This is one of the best ways to work on only part of a model.

How It Works

Suppose your feature tree contains:

If you roll the tree back before Hole, SOLIDWORKS temporarily suppresses the features below that point.

Steps

1. Locate the Rollback Bar in the FeatureManager.
2. Drag it upward to the desired location.
3. Work on the earlier features.
4. Move the Rollback Bar back to the bottom when finished.

Benefits

Rollback is useful for:

• Editing earlier features
• Troubleshooting feature failures
• Understanding model history
• Reducing the amount of active geometry
• Working with complex models

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4. Edit a Specific Feature

If you only need to change one feature, you don’t normally need to rebuild everything manually.

Steps

1. Find the feature in the FeatureManager Design Tree.
2. Right-click it.
3. Select:

Edit Feature

4. Change the required parameters.
5. Click OK.

SOLIDWORKS updates the affected model based on the change.

Example

Suppose you have:

Extrude → Fillet → Hole → Chamfer

If you change the Extrude depth from:

50 mm → 60 mm

SOLIDWORKS updates dependent features as necessary.

Tip

If you only want to modify a feature’s dimensions, Edit Feature is generally better than manually rebuilding the entire model.

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5. Freeze Features

The Freeze bar can prevent selected features from being rebuilt.

This is particularly useful for large or complicated models.

What Does Feature Freeze Do?

When features above the Freeze bar are frozen, SOLIDWORKS does not normally rebuild those features when later changes are made.

This can significantly improve performance.

How to Enable It

Go to:

Tools → Options → System Options → General

and enable the Freeze bar option if it isn’t already available.

A yellow Freeze bar appears in the FeatureManager Design Tree.

Example

Imagine a part has:

50 complex features

You rarely change the first 30 features.

You can freeze those features and continue working on the later portion of the model.

Benefits

• Faster rebuilds
• Better performance
• Useful for complex parts
• Reduces unnecessary recalculation

Important

Use feature freeze carefully. If you later need to modify a frozen feature, you must unfreeze it first.

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6. Lightweight / Large Assembly Options

For large assemblies, the biggest performance gains may come from controlling how components are loaded rather than rebuilding every component in full detail.

SOLIDWORKS provides assembly performance options such as:

• Lightweight components
• Large Design Review
• Large Assembly Settings
• Resolved components
• SpeedPak

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Lightweight Components

A lightweight component loads only the information necessary for the current assembly operation rather than fully loading every component.

Benefits

• Faster assembly opening
• Lower memory usage
• Better performance with large assemblies

Example

An assembly contains:

500 components

Loading every component fully can take considerable time.

Using lightweight components can reduce the amount of data that SOLIDWORKS needs to process.

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Large Design Review

Large Design Review (LDR) is designed for quickly opening and reviewing very large assemblies.

It is useful when you mainly need to:

• View the assembly
• Navigate
• Inspect components
• Review structure
• Measure
• Perform limited assembly operations

It is not intended to replace fully resolved assembly editing.

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SpeedPak

SpeedPak creates a simplified representation of an assembly or subassembly.

It can be particularly useful when working with complex assemblies while still needing access to important geometry.

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Which Method Should You Use?

Situation	Best Method
Model isn’t updating	Ctrl + B
Force complete rebuild	Ctrl + Q
Work on earlier features	Rollback Bar
Change one feature	Edit Feature
Reduce part rebuild time	Freeze Features
Large assembly	Lightweight
Very large assembly review	Large Design Review
Complex subassembly	SpeedPak

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Quick Performance Strategy

For a large SOLIDWORKS model, use this order:

This approach avoids unnecessary rebuilding and can make SOLIDWORKS much more responsive.

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Important Difference

A common misconception is that SOLIDWORKS has a simple command such as “rebuild only this one feature.”

In practice, changing a feature can require dependent downstream features to update. SOLIDWORKS manages those dependencies automatically.

Therefore:

Edit Feature = change a specific feature

Rollback = temporarily work with only part of the feature history

Freeze = prevent selected earlier features from rebuilding

Ctrl + B = normal rebuild

Ctrl + Q = force rebuild

Lightweight/LDR/SpeedPak = improve large-assembly performance

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Conclusion

If your goal is to rebuild only certain things in SOLIDWORKS, the most useful tools are Edit Feature, Rollback, and Freeze Features.

For everyday work:

Edit Feature → Ctrl + B

For troubleshooting:

Rollback → Edit → Test → Restore

For complex parts:

Freeze Features

For large assemblies:

Lightweight → SpeedPak → Large Design Review

And when the model appears out of date or incorrect:

Ctrl + Q → Force Rebuild.

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