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Re: Faster way or shortcut to rename things
I would desperately love it if curves would be named by the feature that created them at least. Having curve 1, curve 2, …. curve 87 is not easy for finding things. I realize that there's not always a one-to-one relationship between a feature and a curve, but there are ways of dealing with that as well.
S1mon
Re: PNG files
You'll first need to have the image uploaded to an Onshape document (doesn't need to be the same document, just one you have access to) so that you can select it.
The "Using appearance functions" section in the documentation here describes how to connect functions to appearance parameters. Most parameters can have functions connected to them, but you can see which parameters are compatible when you start dragging the function as the compatible parameters will have a blue highlight.
For images specifically, you want the various bitmap functions. If you search for "bitmap" in the functions folder you'll find these.
If you don't need the more advanced and complex controls then the second one "Import bitmap file - Bitmap texture" is the one you want. You can just drag this onto the parameter you want to texture then select the image. For bump maps specifically the one on the right needs to be used as it requires the image to be interpreted differently. Similarly for normal maps there is a "Normal map - Texture" function you can use.
When using textures on some parameters, for example specular/reflectivity you may want to interpret them as linear color instead of normal RGB color (so that 50% grey actually gives 50% specular for example), the "Tips" section of the above linked documentation describes how do to this if you need it.
If you need specific placement of the image rather than the automated tiling used by default you'll likely want to take advantage of the "Projector" feature, the documentation for which can be found here.
For generic appearances with the typical types of parameters you want to connect the images to either the "Flexible material model" or the "PBR metallic roughness" or "PBR specular glossiness". If you're trying to use a set of textures from a library somewhere that describes itself as a set of "PBR" textures then it's likely "PBR metallic roughness" you would want to use (usually those have textures for base color, metallic, roughness and normal), otherwise the "Flexible material model" has the most generic set of parameters.
Re: What is the proper approach in onshape for splitting model into multiple parts? (reverse assembling)
Usually you would just start off using two separate revolves.
In the case where you forgot and it would be a huge pain, you can revolve those red lines as a surface, then use the Split feature and split the part with the surface. Note that the split feature requires the surface to completely pass through the part, it can't be mostly to the edge of the part.
Re: Fillet or Face Blend on Icosahedron
I haven't yet published this feature, but it could further simplify your project: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/01168ba15e051e7a318549cf
_anton
Re: Curve Deviation has become Curve Analyzer
Added much needed Scaling controls to get the curvature hairs to be understandable.
Scale is a length multiplier
Scale Sensitivity multiplies the Scale by powers of 10, from 10^-5 to 10^5
Log takes the Natural Log of the length
Log Factor adds meters to all hairs before taking the Nat Log, this has the effect of reducing their relative differences.
I am trying to think of ways to automate these settings to make the default hair lengths "about right" without a lot of fiddling.
The curve on the right is a scan of a printout of a honda ridgeline door handle trim outline.
the curve on the left is an onshape version made in a similar way, using a spline. the problem is that there isn't an easy way to nudge the spline points very small distances, they can only be dragged with the mouse, and that gets messy fast.
I'm sure many of you will say to use a nurbs curve / b-spline, but those are also difficult to control because each CP influences a large portion of the curve, and so very localized curve adjustments are hard to do.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/cc4e811a68209246c3d6a244/w/99faf8c3a688d2acb43db83e/e/cfe8b598709f0d9ba609ffde
Re: Curve Deviation has become Curve Analyzer
I'm glad you're trying it out. I'm 100% sure my curvature algorithm differs from the built in, but it's probably close enough to get a feel for the curve.
My main reasons for making it, besides just to learn how, were:
1. Display radius, rather than curvature
2. have better control over not just scale, but the relative scale of the tallest to the shortest hairs (by doing NATLOG, and being able to adjust that sensitivity as well),
3. being able to control number of hairs
4. being able to flip the direction
the stock analysis is unusable for how I wanted to smooth curves
Re: Curve Deviation has become Curve Analyzer
I'm really happy to see some more specialized features like this. I also noticed that @GregBrown is working on something related.
It would be nice if curves/edges which are more than one piece could be selected for both the reference and analyzed curves.
Somehow when the deviation is large enough to be obvious, it seems weird that the graph at 1:1 doesn't go from the reference to the analyzed curve. I kind of understand why for really detailed analysis and if you want to leave the analysis on for multiple analyzed curves, you want the graph to be based from the analyzed curve, but it's not fully making sense to me.
Also, there's something weird about the radius/curvature display. I've played around with the scale and sensitivity settings and I can't get it to match the built in curvature combs. It almost matches, but not quite.
I'm really curious how you like to use this feature for radius/curvature analysis over the built in. I can see some interesting things with reversing the direction and showing radius only. I tried it using a control point curve that is approximating a circle. It's interesting to see how it makes the deviation from a true circle more obvious, but the settings required for the scale and sensitivity are a bit weird. To get something that is almost 1:1 with the real radius I need a scale of ~3 and sensitivity of 4.
Here's the CP curve (degree 4) which is clearly not a good circle:
Here's the same thing, but I used a degree 6 control point curve approximation - which seems like it might be exact.
S1mon
Re: Is there a way to search for a document through who it is "Owned by"?
For security/abuse reasons, you can't search public documents by creator.
S1mon
Re: Part numbers in configurable subassembly
If you edit the BOM in your assembly you get the automatic creating of a row of "configured properties", unfortunately you cannot edit the name or part number of a version (i.e. you cannot check the "edit in version" check box for these properties)…
For your request of setting "any", you can now set the configuration input to "exclude from properties" which removes it from the configured properties table (only currently available for part studios though…)
In our case we became a bit frustrated by the hard rules of the part number property (we often want to use the same PN for an assembly and a part, specifically for sheet metal parts with PEMs inserts) and we have a separate property called "vendor part number" (and one called "vendor"). For our own "custom" parts, we set the vendor as ourselves and effectively duplicate the part number value into the "vendor part number property". This "vendor part number" is the one we use in BOMs rather than the built-in part number.
It does add a layer of "manual" entry (and a source of mistake) but it does give us the flexibility to set the property directly from the BOM. We also don't really care too much about the "name" as we rely on the description field. You could use a feature to set the name to include the "X and Y" dimensions automatically (and dynamically). See property explorer FS.
