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Man, great writeup, Nick!

At Trek Bikes we leverage the power of Onshape's configuration options for our Carbon Fiber and Alloy bike designs. Think about modeling a bicycle frame that comes in many sizes. Our long standard has been develop one size first, typically a middle size, and really get the ID dialed. Then duplicate, change the centerline geometry to the next size, update, and reshape.

The problem occurs once we get to the bookend sizes. Often times due to tighter angles on size small, and really stretched shapes of an XL we miss something that causes the manufacturing process already determined to not work, or additional size specific parts are needed. In order to keep the manufacturing process the same across the size run and keep sku's down we then end up going back and updating the already completed first sizes so they can meet those needs. It's a lot of rework as you can imagine.

I'm working to master all sizes together. Meaning I configure our CL geometry sketch, and hang supporting sketches and features on it so in a way as the CL is changes between sizes the entire model updates.

I think @EvanReese says it well above;

"A side note on configuring aesthetic surfaces: I always look for subtle geometric relationships I can establish, so my curves/surfaces can update in a pleasing way even for sizes I've not planned for. But as your ID friend says, there are subjective aspects to surfacing in ID (sometimes you gotta eyeball it), however I don't think that precludes configuration. You can position points by eye, even if they are driven by configured dimensions."

Expanding on that,

I leverage sketch constrains and helper geometry over dimensions. Think of in terms of proportion and position things accordingly. IE this point should be 2/5's along the length on a line across the size range. There are a lot of tools in Onshape that use percentages for placement, use them instead of static dimensions.

You gotta eyeball them, so where needed configure a dimension, do this as little as you can get away with.

The bridging curve is your best friend. Its robust, and does a great job holding consistent shape across changing parameters within reason. The magnitudes can further be configured for outlier sizes.

I haven't dug into Query Variables yet, shame on me - too busy!, but before they existed I have been using @lana's Assign Identity FS to configure selected vertices, edges, or faces. This FS helped almost eliminate the need for whole size specific subsets of feature's needed to generate a specific size where the original set could not get it done.

There's more to it than this for really complex models, hope to share more later.

The past few projects I have been able to configure the full size run up to our first release. This has saved loads of time later in the production phase as we are able to foresee most issues from the start. Once these products are made public, I'll be sure to share more.

@euan_dykes I'm trained as an Industrial Designer, and have done a lot of professional projects in Onshape with teams of people at my former agency. Yes it is definitely possible. There's huge value in a unified team. I'm always surprised when teams allow the ID to be thought of as so separate from the rest of the product development as if there's nothing valuable for them to do once an initial concept is together. As any product developer knows, the process is a series of experiments, pivots, and compromises, and I believe that a good Industrial Design culture encourages the ID people to steward their design vision though that gauntlet up to production.

A side note on configuring aesthetic surfaces: I always look for subtle geometric relationships I can establish, so my curves/surfaces can update in a pleasing way even for sizes I've not planned for. But as your ID friend says, there are subjective aspects to surfacing in ID (sometimes you gotta eyeball it), however I don't think that precludes configuration. You can position points by eye, even if they are driven by configured dimensions.

@MichaelPascoe updated the thread so there's a link at the top, I just realized my first link in that post was to the old query explorer which isn't the most helpful thing for discovery lol