The mate is normally defined by a block.

The block guarantees the possibility of defining a marker with a unique name, equipped with an installation point and rotation angle and with the possibility of inserting extra attributes. The geometry included in the mate is not particularly important, as it is not used by the software. However, it may be useful to use geometries that highlight the type of material, the installation point and the insertion angle of the block. A simple solution is to insert a small coloured line on the installation point and oriented at zero degrees in order to highlight the angle of the mate once positioned.

It is useful to create the entities to include in the mate on layer 100 (default) so that you can hide all the mates by turning off the layer.

Each mate must belong to the part it refers to. It is very important to attach the mates correctly to the parts. It is a common mistake to forget to attach the mates to the parts. This causes the component to malfunction.