Happy New Year, Onshape community!

Last year brought 17 new Onshape releases, with countless new features and improvements. We hope you have found them beneficial to your designs and workflows every day. But now is hardly the time to reflect on what we have accomplished together - instead, we are excited to start off the year strong with some new features in our first release of 2026!

PART STUDIO IMPROVEMENTS

REVOLVE FEATURE END CONDITIONS

Onshape has introduced new end conditions for Revolve features that provide more flexible ways to define how revolve operations terminate. The new options include Up to Next (terminates when intersecting with existing geometry), Up to Part (terminates into a specified part or body), Up to Vertex (terminates at any selected point), and Up to Face (terminates at any specified face). These enhancements streamline the design process by removing the need to manually calculate angles or clean up geometry after creating revolve features.

SKETCH DIALOG REMEMBERS ON/OFF STATE

In the sketch dialog, the Show constraints, Show expressions, and Show errors checkbox on/off state now persists. The state of these settings is remembered on a per user basis across all documents and sessions, and is maintained everywhere in Onshape until changed. This includes both editing old sketches and creating new ones. The Disable imprinting checkbox state persists only when creating a new sketch.

SKETCH SLOTS - CLOSED CURVES

The sketch Slot tool now supports the creation of slots based on selecting a closed curve.

CONNECTION ANALYSIS TOOL

A new Connection analysis tool allows you to quickly evaluate the connection type of two surfaces. It displays G0 (connection), G1 (tangency), and G2 (curvature continuity), with the option to prescribe a tolerance value for G1 and G2 types. 

ASSEMBLY IMPROVEMENTS

LINK PART STUDIO CONTEXT TO ASSEMBLY NAMED POSITIONS

You can now set an Part studio's assembly context to follow one of the assembly’s Named positions. By linking a context to a Named position, Onshape only presents the option to update the Part studio's context when the assembly’s Named position has changed. You may link and unlink a context freely as required, allowing for even clearer control of multiple contexts, even in an assembly with complex motion.

MIRRORED SHEET METAL FLAT PATTERN VIEW

When creating derived, or opposite hand versions of sheet metal parts using Assembly mirror, Onshape now automatically provides the flat pattern for those parts. This eliminates the need to reference the original reference part's flat pattern for manufacturing purposes.

GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS

CONFIGURATION VISIBILITY - ALWAYS SHOW

A new option makes it easier to always show a configuration input, regardless of any other applied Configuration visibility conditions.

VARIABLE TABLE IMPORT FROM CSV 

You can now create or update an Onshape Variable table from an external CSV file.


As a note, it is possible to configure fields to extract different table values depending on your Onshape configuration. To further understand the depth of this functionality, we encourage you to review the help documentation. 

LEVEL OF DETAIL GRAPHICS IMPROVEMENT - TRANSPARENCY

Just a few releases ago, we introduced a graphical level of detail improvement when zooming in on complex designs. This load-on-demand graphics behavior is now implemented for parts with transparency.

ONSHAPE-ARENA CONNECTION

AUTOMATIC CREATION OF SHEET METAL DXF ON RELEASE SYNC

When a sync operation occurs at the creation of a release, Onshape now automatically generates a DXF of the flat pattern for any Sheet metal parts contained in the release candidate. The DXF file(s) are displayed in the Files view in Arena after being synced.



NOTE: While enabled in Onshape at this release, this improvement will not be functional in your environment until an update to Arena is completed. Currently, that update is scheduled to be complete on or before January 11th, 2026. The update has been completed successfully, and this feature is now available for all Onshape-Arena connected environments.

CAM STUDIO IMPROVEMENTS

ADAPTIVE CUTTING OPTIONS

Adaptive cutting options are now available for 2D roughing, 3D roughing, and flatlands in all versions of Onshape CAM Studio. These strategies maintain a constant chip load, which improves machining accuracy, reduces cycle times, and results in smoother toolpaths.

WORKPLANES AND DATUMS

Onshape CAM Studio now supports work planes and datums for all users, enabling the definition and management of custom coordinate systems within CAM projects. This update improves setup efficiency and precision.

DATUM OVERRIDES

CAM Studio has introduced a new datum overrides feature that gives users complete control over assigning work coordinate system identifiers. This enhancement allows users to apply unique identifiers to each setup or work plane they create, providing greater flexibility and organization in their CAM workflows.

SHIFT WORK COORDINATE SYSTEM

You can now manually shift a work coordinate system location using X, Y, and Z values. If a user needs to assign a work coordinate system on a specific feature or a specific location, users can measure and apply those values.

WORKHOLDING

CAM Studio now allows workholding selection at the job level. This means users can assign and manage specific workholding elements for each job, so simulations display only the relevant fixtures. This improves simulation accuracy and streamlines the manufacturing setup.

TOOL HAND

Onshape CAM now automatically sets the spindle direction for milling, drilling, and tapping operations based on the tool hand. For tapping tools, thread direction is linked to the tool hand. These changes ensure consistent NC output and simplify setup.

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 Documents. Over the next few days, these features will also be available in Documents created before this update.  Mobile app interface updates occur via the Apple App store or Google Play store and happen in the days following the update.