Envelope Volumes
Extract an envelope by sweeping a volume.
During the design space creation process, it is often necessary to generate volumes of bodies - they could comprise either parts or subsystems - for the purposes of representing a movement or a manufacturing assembly process. For example, the representation of a wheel would mean the suspension path and the extreme turning bounds of the wheel need to be considered and an envelope volume generated. An example of an assembly process may be the direction in which the transmission and powertrain are installed. In both these examples it is not permitted to allow a load path to pass through the enveloped volume. The envelope is used as part of the design space process and would be considered as an “exclude” volume such that the voxel mesh is not generated where the envelope(s) is/are present.
It is possible to create an envelope by using a simple linear drag but there are many other use cases where you need the envelope to follow a specific path. In this case there are options to follow the path via the sweep function. Spin is also available which allows you to spin the source from a start angle/position to an end angle/position.