In some cases parts or independent part instances contain details such as very small faces and edges. The Virtual Topology toolset allows you to remove these small details by combining a small face with an adjacent face or by combining a small edge with an adjacent edge. You can also ignore selected edges and vertices, which has the same effect as combining faces and edges. Introducing virtual topology is a convenient method for creating a clean, well-formed mesh. The Virtual Topology toolset is available only in the Mesh module.

However, adding virtual topology to a part instance can restrict your ability to subsequently mesh the part instance. For example, you cannot mesh regions that contain virtual topology using the following techniques:

In addition, you can apply virtual topology only to independent instances. If you need to apply virtual topology to a dependent instance, you can create a copy of the original part and then create an independent instance of the copy. You can then replace the dependent instance with the new independent instance and apply virtual topology to the independent instance. For more information, see “What is the difference between a dependent and an independent part instance?,” Section 13.3.2.