Design Nomenclature / Digital Model Making
Non-destructive Editing
Also called non-destructive workflow, modifier stack, adjustment layers
Keeping edits as a re-evaluable stack over untouched source data rather than writing results back into it. Adjustment layers, smart objects, modifier stacks, and CAD feature trees are one idea arrived at four times. The cost is evaluation time and a stack that eventually nobody understands, including whoever built it.
In practice
The same principle as parametric modeling, reached independently in 2D. “Flatten it” is the admission that the stack has stopped serving anyone.
Not to be confused with
- Parametric ModelingA model recorded as an ordered sequence of operations bound to editable parameters and to references on earlier geometry. Change a dimension and the tree replays. The power and the fragility are one thing: a reference to a face that a later edit renames or deletes breaks the rebuild.
- Direct ModelingEditing the boundary geometry itself — grab a face, push it — with no feature tree to replay. Recognition tools infer intent, reading a ring of faces as a hole, so the edit stays sensible. Excellent on imported or dumb solids: there is nothing to break and nothing to parametrize.