Under the hood

I think the best place to start this journey into design automation is at the beginning.
I want to explain what is happening behind the scenes in DriveWorksXpress as you capture parameters, construct the user form and apply the rules that automate your designs.
When DriveWorksXpress is launched for the very first time a Microsoft Access database is created. By default this is stored in your My Documents (just Documents on Vista) in a folder called DriveWorksXpress; the database is given the same name.

Tip: The Welcome screen clearly shows where the current active database is located, but I recommend creating your own at a location that can be easily recreated on a colleague's computer so your work can be shared.

This is important because DriveWorks keeps a record of the full file path where each controlled model and drawing is stored. It needs this information so the file references, stored in SolidWorks, can be swapped effectively by DriveWorksXpress.

Now, if you have many products that you will be automating there is no need to create a separate database for each product. However you do need to be aware of how your master files are named. I will expand on this in my next post.