What is the purpose of the feature browser?

The feature browser serves as a key tool in managing and visualizing the relationships between the features within a CAD model. Its primary purpose is to illustrate the hierarchical structure of features, allowing users to easily see which features are derived from others, often referred to as parent-child relationships. This visualization is crucial for understanding how modifications to one feature may affect others, thereby facilitating better design management and error tracing.

In contrast, while creating new features is an essential task in modeling, this is typically done through design commands or tools rather than the feature browser itself. Optimizing feature performance in real-time is also not a function of the feature browser; this generally involves other software tools or performance analysis methods. Similarly, organizing features by type and size does not accurately encapsulate the primary function of the feature browser, as its focus is more on the relational aspect rather than categorization based on size or type. This reinforces the idea that the correct answer accurately captures the primary utility of the feature browser in a design context.