I am using Solidworks 2014 to model an optical setup and I would like to precisely fix the distance in three dimension between objects. In some cases both objects are mated to the, say the optical table, but in other cases one or both of them are floating. I searched the tutorials, but there seem to be a number of ways of doing it, so I would like to stick with the preferred one.

My second question is about copying an entire object that consists of 3 or more mates; is it possible to do so? For example in my case I have a post, post-holder and a mirror on top. I would like to copy all of this assembly and mate it on another position on the optical table. I think it is possible and I tried copy with mates but failed. I would appreciate your guidance here.

Many thanks