As with feasibility modules (see Process and Operation Feasibility), you can use template pruning modules to eliminate routings from consideration by the cost engine. When the cost engine evaluates a feasibility module, it can identify a particular routing as infeasible (and eliminate it from consideration); in contrast, when the cost engine evaluates a pruning module, it can identify a large class of routings as infeasible.

A template pruning module eliminates a node (together with all its descendent nodes) from a routing template, saving the cost engine the trouble of expanding the pruned template portion and preventing consideration of the individual routings that expansion would have produced. For example, a pruning module might eliminate, for parts that have no turning axes, all routings with rotational processes (which are contained in a single subtree of the template).

When you navigate to the CSL modules for a node (see Navigating from the Template Graph to the Data for a Given Node), if the node has a template pruning module, the module’s Type Name field is set templatePruningRule and the label templatePruningRule appears next to the folder icon.

This section includes the following subsections: