Envelopes--Have you used them?

I looked in the API help for a way to bring in an envelope. SW uses a
the same method they use for bringing in a part which tells me that
whatever an envelope is beyond a part it gains from being in the
assembly. There has got to be a process that converts a part to an
envelope inside the assembly. As you know an envelope also appears in
the config tree as well as in the feature tree.

 

I generally use them as a skeleton type part and with a great deal of
success. SolidWorks should put some effort in to advertising this
methodology (as they should the insert-part methods described by others
here)

One major problem with this methodology is handing models over to people
who don't understand it (and won't take the time to learn). By the time
they get handed back they're broken - contexts deleted, ignored etc.

Chris

 

I don't think SW is to blame on not advertising this. They have. When
this discussion started years ago and SW found out that envelopes could
be used many things in addition to selection in assemblies this even
got into one of SW newsletters. And I believe they had at least three
presentations at the last SWW that touched on this. My TTM during that
time was even pushing it in some meetings and demos.

But you are right about what happens when somebody works on one of
these models without understanding. This is true of anything. One of
the things that users come to understand after Essentials training is a
bit about how to analyze a SW model. This is an essential trait in any
SW user worth his/her salt.

The blame if there is any has to rest primarily on VARS because they
are the ones in touch with users and most able to demonstrate
applications of this and any other functionality to real world
problems. Case in point, I was in a meeting all week with an ex-AE from
a VAR. He had no idea of what envelopes could do and made the statement
that he had never seen anyone use them. And he worked for a VAR in a
major metropolitan area.