topic Some questions about Shrinkwrap/Substitute/Simiplified Part in Inventor Forum

Some questions about Shrinkwrap/Substitute/Simiplified Part

DRoam — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 14:46:45 GMT

I'm a little new to using the Shrinkwrap tools but they're coming in handy removing some unnecessary details for an assembly we need to send to a customer. Here's the basic situation:

Within our main assembly we have several occurrences of a sub-assembly (a heating unit) from a supplier that we want to remove some detail from. The heating unit has lots of piping and piping instrumentation. The "Define Envelopes" tool is great for turning all of those individual piping components into simplified blocks. The problem is, those envelopes are visible in all Design Views, and I only want them to show up in a single Design View called "Customer STEP". Can I somehow turn off the visibility of those envelopes in all of my full-detail Design Views, so when a full-detail Design View is used in my main assembly, the envelopes aren't shown?

Also, in our simplified version I'd like to remove a few specific holes and fillets (not all) from a few specific Parts that I don't want to convert to envelopes. What's the best way to do that? Shrinkwrap, Shrinkwrap Substitue, or Simplified Part? What's the difference between those?

To clarify, I want to apply all of these simplifications to my assembly itself, not create a secondary file, so that in my main assembly I can just change the representation of all occurrences of the Heater to the simplified version.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Re: Some questions about Shrinkwrap/Substitute/Simiplified Part

MechMachineMan — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 18:02:05 GMT

As far as I understand, all 3 of those things produce the same end result, but just use a slightly different user interface to do so. This understanding is based on the fact that they all turn into a derivedpartcomponent/derivedassemblycomponent (as visible through the API) and the functionality to edit the base part brings up the same window.

I think you are a bit limited by the tools within these for remove specific holes as I believe the only options are really by hose size. I'm sure there are workaround (maybe assembly level sketches?) or iLogic workarounds that could be used based on feature name or some other identifying factor.

Re: Some questions about Shrinkwrap/Substitute/Simiplified Part

DRoam — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 18:49:09 GMT

Thanks Justin, that's what I'm thinking, too. I think Shrinkwrap and Simplified Part are identical (both of them let you Derive the assembly into a Part), with the only difference being Shrinkwrap gives you more up-front customization/simplification options. But you get all those same options after-the-fact with Simplified Part if you edit the Derive feature. Kind of silly having the two tools, in my opinion.

I think the only truly unique one is "Shrinkwrap Substitute". It takes things a step further in that after it creates the simplified Shrinkwrapped part file, it puts the result back into the original assembly as an LOD so you can then use the simplified version as a alternative representation of the Assembly wherever it might show up (in other assemblies or drawings). Sort of like what I'm trying to do, but I really don't want to step in the LOD quagmire, so I won't be trying this.

I also think you're right about none of those tools having the ability to select and remove specific features. I can remove all holes or fillets below a certain size but not specific ones. So there's no reason for me to Shrinkwrap my Heater assembly anyway. The Envelope tool does the more important part of what I need.

What I do need to do though is, after I get my Heater simplified, I need to Derive out (or Shrinkwrap, whatever you want to call it) my Main Assembly (which contains the Heater) into a Part so I can convert it into single dumb composite feature (preferably), or single dumb solid. This is where I run into another issue.

So, after getting more familiar with Envelopes and Shrinkwrap I can simplify my original question and add a couple more:

How can I turn off the Visibility of an Envelope feature? If I right-click an Envelope feature I can turn off the visibility of the original geometry, but not the Envelope feature. I can suppress the Envelope feature but then it's removed completely, including from my Simplified view rep.
How can I control the Appearance of an Envelope feature? From my Main assembly, if I apply an Appearance override to the Heater assembly, all parts take on the override except the Envelope features. Why don't they obey the override and how can I make them do so?
How can I make an Envelope feature participate correctly in a Derive operation? If I Derive my Heater assembly (or my main assembly which contains it) into a Part as a Composite surface, all of the Envelope features are lost. If I Derive as a combined solid, all of the Envelopes are created as UN-associative extrusions. How can I make my Envelope features participate in a Composite surface derive, and be associative in a Solid derive?

Re: Some questions about Shrinkwrap/Substitute/Simiplified Part

EvanGu — Tue, 27 Mar 2018 09:41:07 GMT

The Envelope feature works similarly as the assembly feature, it locates in front of the End of Features in browser. Current Design View or LOD does not have the ability to control the visibility of such features, this alternative representation function is under consideration.

When creating or editing an envelope, there is an option to select the appearance.

For your 3rd question, an Envelope feature only participates the compute of Create Simplified Part (non composite derive) and results as an Extrusion. It's an one-off process, the extrusion has no association with the original envelope after the part file has been created.

Re: Some questions about Shrinkwrap/Substitute/Simiplified Part

DRoam — Tue, 27 Mar 2018 14:20:43 GMT

Thanks for that information, Evan. It seems like the Envelopes are a half-implemented feature and don't support all of the important operations we might want/need to do with them. Fortunately I don't need to do stuff like this very often, but for those who do I'd imagine these limitations are very frustrating.

For the sake of those people (and myself, when I do need to do this) I created some entries in the IdeaStation so these limitations can hopefully be recognized and eventually fixed.

Those who wish to can vote for them here:

"Envelopes" improvement: Add Visibility control

"Envelopes" improvement: Add Appearance/color control

"Envelopes" improvement: Participate correctly in Derive operations

In the meantime I guess I'll just unsupppress the Envelopes when exporting designs for our customers and re-suppress them after. I won't be able to have them shown in some Drawing views but not in others, though, which is annoying.

I'll also have to individually change every one of their Appearances one by one, by editing the Envelope feature, when nice presentation is necessary.

And finally I'll have to use a Solid derive even though it's larger and slower, and I'll have to re-derive every time the location of an Enveloped part changes.

Hopefully these limitations can be fixed sooner rather than later.