About bounding boxes and TruShape files

Bounding boxes and TruShape (TSO) files are required to perform spatial search within structures.

A bounding box is a box around the geometry of a part (item revision). When a user performs a proximity search by selecting the part, Teamcenter limits the search result by identifying bounding boxes of other parts that are within or ones that intersect the bounding box of the selected part.

To make the search result more accurate (relative to the geometric shape of the part), TSO files are required. A TSO file contains the voxel representation of each part that has geometry. With TSO files, Teamcenter simplifies the geometry of the intersecting parts into small cubes that provide a simplified representation of the actual shapes.

If cacheless search is deployed at your site, the process of generating bounding boxes and TSO files is already set up. If cacheless search is not deployed, you must set up the process of generating bounding boxes and TSO files.