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Best Of

Improvements to Onshape - July 30th, 2021

We are excited to bring you our second update this month! This update brings several improvements in different areas of Onshape. Let's dig in.

GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS

AUTOMATICALLY CHANGE URLS IN COMMENTS TO HYPERLINKS

When an URL is added in a comment, it is now automatically changed to hyperlink. This way you are able to directly select it. Also, external links are indicated with an icon and a tooltip.

CUSTOM FEATURES AUTO-SUGGESTED THROUGH PART STUDIO SEARCH COMMAND

The search command has been improved to automatically suggest Onshape promoted custom features related to your search. You also have the possibility to directly add the custom feature to your toolbar. Users will see suggestions as Onshape populates the list of promoted custom features.

HELP DOCUMENTATION IMPROVEMENTS

With this release, many improvements have been made to the help documentation. You will find new videos, better documentation for keyboard shortcuts and new icons at the top of the page to help navigate through the system, print and download as PDF.

CAD IMPROVEMENTS

OPTION TO PREVENT OR DISABLE IMPRINTING IN SKETCH

Until now, sketches created on faces imprinted the face below them. This, unfortunately, led to unintentionally created sketch regions caused by the intersection of upstream and downstream sketches or the inability to select sketch regions below other sketch regions. With this release, you can now check a box for whether or not to allow the sketch to “imprint” onto the face of the part.

REMEMBER LAST ENTRY FOR RADIUS AND DISTANCE FOR FILLET AND CHAMFER

The last value for radius and distance for fillet and chamfer is now remembered and used as the default for the next fillet/chamfer feature. This is only available for radius of circular fillets and distance for “Equal distance” and “Distance and angle” chamfer.

SUPPORT FOR JT EXPORT

With this release, you now have the option to export parts and assemblies to JT format.

SHOW HIDDEN/SUPPRESSED STATES IN TOOLTIPS

Hovering the cursor over a hidden or suppressed feature or instance now displays their state in the tooltip.

DRAWING IMPROVEMENTS

ABILITY TO EDIT DRAWING TAB NAME IN CREATE DRAWING DIALOG

In this release, you can now edit the drawing tab name directly in the create drawing dialog.

DRAWING PROPERTY FOR USER’S INITIALS

Some Organizations prefer to use their employee’s initials to mark off drawings, rather than their full names. In this release you can now easily do that with the new “documentation name” property. This property will be used over the Nickname if filled out.

RELEASE MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENTS

RELEASE MANAGEMENT PART NUMBER PREFIX ALLOWS MORE CHARACTERS

In this release, the part number prefix scheme has been increased from 6 to 10 characters.

RECOGNIZE REVISION PROPERTY FOR FIRST RELEASE

Upon the initial revision after Release management is turned on, Onshape maintains the revision values for Parts, Assemblies, and Drawings. This will be important for anyone that is migrating data over into Onshape and wants to preserve the revision metadata that they bring over from another system. If the associated revision is not the same as the Release management scheme, a warning message is produced, and the object's revision value is adjusted to match the Release management revision scheme.

FEATURESCRIPT IMPROVEMENTS

FS OPERATION TO FLIP ORIENTATION

With this release, we have introduced `opFlipOrientation`. It fully flips the orientation of a given sheet body or plane. This can be used for example to flip a sheet metal sheet body to invert the up-down flags in a drawing.

Please take a moment to try out these new features and improvements and leave your comments below. For a detailed list of all the changes in this update, please see the changelog.

Remember: The updates listed here are now live for all users when creating new Onshape Documents and over the next few days these features will also be available in Documents created before the date of this update.

paul_simon

New FeatureScript - World Revolve

Hello all,
Something I've always wanted to see added to the revolve feature is the ability to easily use a world axis to define the axis of a revolve. Since Onshape doesn't support datum axes by default, revolving around a world axis often means manually creating an arbitrary length construction line or manually selecting and reorienting a mate connector at the origin. This is tedious and annoying, and can also pose a challenge to new users who aren't familiar with the behavior of the revolve feature or the types of geometry which can be used to define a valid axis.

In order to solve these problems, I threw together a FeatureScript yesterday which adds the option of selecting a default axis to revolve around to the revolve feature. Since it is simply a modification of the existing revolve feature, it leaves all of the core functionality of the revolve feature untouched. It also generates color-coded axes with point manipulators which show the user the valid axes they can revolve their selection around, making it easy to select an appropriate axis to use.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/sh/zduwuehp6859.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/ho/9jzyj8jdw0wb.png

If you want to try it for yourself, you can find the feature here:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/01ff7dc2c65a71981aa23c0f/v/f741e64794d4a17d74fb6f65/e/21e0393d382af10f6f43909e

If you think this functionality should be available by default in the standard library, you can vote for the improvement request here:
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/16544/allow-revolving-around-a-world-axis-by-default/p1?new=1

Alex_Kempen

Re: How to strip the units from a length?

A better way of doing this is dividing by the unit. If you want the number of inches in #length, use #length / in
Getting the value like @konstantin_shiriazdanov proposed will always give you the length in whatever internal units we're using, which may not be what you want.

ilya_baran

Re: Graphics Cards for CAD

@lorenz_poiger. Because Onshape relies on WebGL, we are much more poised to deliver very good performance on GPU's like the GTX1660. We are not like typical installed CAD software that relies on driver optimization usually only found on workstation class cards. You will find Onshape helps give you much better performance on often times more powerful gaming GPU's and usually at a much better price point than a workstation class card. If you are relying on Onshape as your CAD solution, there is really not much of a reason to pay more for a workstation GPU. We often recommend you to try us out on hardware before you purchase that hardware. This is almost impossible to do casually with installed software, however it is very easy to do with Onshape - as you can often log into your Onshape account in any store that sells devices and see how local GPU performance is on that device with your datasets. Of course you can always run the check page with each device as well.

PeteYodis

Improvements to Onshape - July 13, 2021

We're kicking off July with a new update. This update includes highly requested import and release management features. Let’s take a look!

CAD IMPROVEMENTS

IMPORT IMPROVEMENTS

Split into multiple documents is improved to take advantage of our unique document structure.

IMPROVED ARRAY AND MAP ITERATION FOR FEATURESCRIPT

Now, define your for loops with the key and value within the declaration:

for (var index, value in myArray)
{
   ...
}

A similar syntax is allowed for maps as well:

for (var key, value in myMap)
{
   ...
}

These improvements are equivalent syntax to the existing map/array iteration in Featurescript. See the Featurescript Documentation for more details.

DRAWING IMPROVEMENTS

TABLE SUPPORT FOR ALT + ENTER

Create new lines within a table by holding ALT(Option) while pressing Enter.

GROUP NOTES WITH DRAWING VIEWS

You can group notes and drawing views by pre-selecting them and choosing Group from the right-click in context menu.

PROFESSIONAL IMPROVEMENTS

RELEASE MANAGEMENT CHANGE DETECTION

Release candidates detect unchanged components to avoid needless revisioning.

RELEASE MANAGEMENT WARNING IMPROVEMENTS

Release Management now detects and warns the user if the candidate contains an obsolete component.

ENTERPRISE IMPROVEMENTS

ANALYTICS IMPROVEMENTS

Analytics has new filters and columns to better organize customized reports and dashboards.

MOBILE IMPROVEMENTS

SELECTION IMPROVEMENTS IN IOS

Modify the order of selections for Transforms, 3D fit spline, Boolean, and most Mates.

LINK SHARING IN IOS

Activate Share links directly from your iOS device.

For a detailed list of all the changes in this update, please see the changelog.

Remember: The updates listed here are now live for all users when creating new Onshape Documents and over the next few days these features will also be available in Documents created before the date of this update.

Lindsay_Early

Accurate chain generator FS!

just wanted to put this out there: I've made an FS which generates roller chain models around arbitrarily positioned sprockets (or a custom path) with the key important bit being that the linear distance between instances is constant and defined by the pitch of the chain.
link to document: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/1be886df2e36b431c92b2d61/v/2cc5a879879308d0d443846c/e/17a1b8e5fd0b4440efc1c3de

some stuff:

Currently has a reasonable collection of ANSI & ISO roller chain standard links built in (with more on the way) - if anyone knows where I can find a comprehensive dimension table for a lot of different roller chain standards, it'd be much appreciated!
Users can pattern custom links, with custom pitch lengths, with instance orientation
There's a built in performance mode which generates a sweep profile along the path with the dimensions of standard chain types to boost performance
Supports an arbitrary number and location of sprockets, including tensioners
Sprocket diameters are also accurate based on pitch and tooth count
UI/feature improvement suggestions are welcome!

some images:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/vg/p180vdfayk59.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/km/4k36h5m4jg4f.png

imants_smidchens

Re: how to use mirrorAcross

You can mirror across any planar face, so if the part you're mirroring has a good face for that, you can just use that face.

Otherwise, if you have the mathematical description for the plane you want to mirror across, but no actual geometry for it, you can do something like:

var mPlane = plane(vector(1, 2, 3) * inch, vector(1, 0, 0)); // <-- just an example, use any plane you want
opPlane(context, id + "plane", { "plane" : mPlane }); // <-- creates the construction plane<br>mirror(...); // <-- do the mirror using qCreatedBy(id + "plane", EntityType.FACE) as the `mirrorPlane`

opDeleteBodies(context, id + "delete", { "entities" : qCreatedBy(id + "plane", EntityType.BODY) }); // <-- delete the plane so it is not left behind in the Part Studio

https://cad.onshape.com/FsDoc/library.html#plane-Vector-Vector
https://cad.onshape.com/FsDoc/library.html#opPlane-Context-Id-map
https://cad.onshape.com/FsDoc/library.html#opDeleteBodies-Context-Id-map

Jake_Rosenfeld

Re: Can someone explain ""Editing Logic Function" to me?

That's exactly right except that specifiedParameters is whether the user manually interacted with the parameter during the current feature edit (as opposed to ever). hiddenBodies is a query for all bodies that are currently hidden (so that our extrude feature for instance doesn't try to boolean with something the user can't see).

ilya_baran