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Re: The Perfect Mouse for CAD
@euan_dykes Oh yes, I can relate to your observations. As a full time CAD user for 30yrs+, I've also tried and rocked down quite a few mice: The standard ones, the apple ones, those with trackball or -pad and the fancy-buttoned ones. The worst time was when I had no choice but to use a company provided super fancy 100-button-CAD mouse and the small Apple keyboard without the number pad. My hand and arm hurt.
After going trough the loop, I finally came back to basics, but this time, having learned the hard way, more carefully chosen.
- I want a wired mouse, for I hate caring for batteries, and they're more lightweight, too.
- I tend to accidentally click on all the fancy buttons, so I like a clean mouse.
- Because of the resolution on all surfaces I chose a laser mouse.
- To help with that, I use a super thin self-adhesive 3M mousepad (costs more than a mouse, but good).
- Because of the click-and-hold index finger strain I chose one with higher klickforce, so I can rest my finger on the button without accidentally clicking anything.
- Because most of the strain comes from holding up the palm, it had to be one with a palm rest at the right position (I have large hands), but only at the right position. I don't like my hand getting sweaty due to overly large plastic contact surface.
- So I found the Dell Laser Mouse MS3220 and that's it. It was more expensive back then, but I stocked up on them - you never kow! Today, they're still around at half the price. ;0)
- I use a Spacemouse to complement it.
- The SpaceMouse is a wired one, too, and the most basic model at that, without many buttons (has 2 of them) I think it is called the 3DX Space Navigator. I've had this for many years already, there is a new model out now.
- I never use keyboards without a number pad, even my laptop has one.
The above might appear a bit like the poor man's CAD equipment, though it has turned out to be the most durable, reliable, hassle free and productive setup for me, and I didn't suffer any more overuse issues for a decade or so.
My worst experience, when it comes to CAD overuse and muscle strain issues, was demoing gesture controlled CAD in front of an 80" screen at an exhibition for a week. So, be warned and stay away from such ideas: These things do only work in SciFi movies. ;0)
Re: Avoiding accidental exit (or accidentally confirming) changes
Here, I'm done with the sketch:
You can now:
-click the greenbutton
or
-double click on Extrude 39
You don't have to click the greenbutton:
When you're done editing the extrude, Double click Mutual trim 5. You don't have to click the greenbutton.
And….. old dogs can learn new tricks, this old dog just taught you a new trick.
The cloud is different from that old traditional program. There's a flood of information flowing back and forth between your client & the servers with an amazing thing, they manage that traffic very well.
Please remember to be nice to old dogs.

Re: How to sweep over a cylindrical face along a projected curve instead of a helix
just need to extend the profiles into the hub to eliminated the non manifold error. in this example I did one tooth and patterned it. I applied the fillet after the loft was well. then second example I just lofted the whole sketch as you had via the path then subtracted out the hole.

Re: Fully-defined sketches: what are they, and why care?
I have a pretty decent Dell 32" 4K monitor. That's not the issue. The issue is that blue dots are almost indistinguishable from black dots. I don't have trouble with blue lines vs black lines, but the end points are often hard to catch in a complex sketch.

Re: Routing curve & Control point curve - Introduction of two new features for 3D curve creation
@Matt_NC I've never used routing in SW, just wasn't interested so I can't comment on how they do it.
I'm working on many structures inside OS trying to create a parametric project for a piece of equipment. In the end, they want it as small as possible. I'm currently on my 4th layout or maybe 5th. I probably have a 100 more before I'm done which is why I have to get parametrics working well.
I'm using assembles mostly to handle plumbing bits. You might think its a lot of work to assemble the gaskets, end fittings, check valves…. but its really fast. Controlling plumbing in an assembly is the way to go. I'm using routing at the begin just to define where things need to go, from here to there, but assembling the plumbing using simple mates. The speed comes from windowing in a pipe segment, then copy & then paste. You get everything including the constraints. You can even copy to another assembly. I can't tell you have fast it is to design plumbing inside OS.
When you build a pipe run, you leave room for adjustments with slides and rotates. The inverse kinematics inside OS will solve the pipe shape after making a change. The only thing that changes currently in my parametric model is pipe length for straights. I solve these with in context. After an update all pipes lengths update connecting things together. I'm thinking of adding angles to elbows and solving this with inverse kinematics. Currently I'm thinking plumbing needs to be vertical & horizontal, If I need to pack tighter, then I'll start using angled elbows. With angles I could really pack the spaghetti tightly.
Oh yeah, the BOM's are correct and pipe lengths are contained in the BOM. I've set this up so I don't think about BOM's.
It's easy to compute route lengths including the arcs, so yes, let's do it.

Re: The Perfect Mouse for CAD
I second @Rhett_Robinson 's vote for the MX Master 3. I've used, ummm, a lot of mice over the years: from tiny travel size ones (I have done a ton of work on the road and on the armrests of coach-class plane seats), wired, wireless, MagicMouse, trackball, pen (Wacom), and even homemade….
But the current one I use (MX Master 3) in conjunction with a SpaceMouse is the best setup I've used. It is the right combo of the ergonomics, weight, mouse button "action", enough programmability and long battery life. I've done a lot of customization to Onshape keyboard shortcuts to cluster them on the left side of the keyboard so I don't have to let go of the mouse very often.
Re: Avoiding accidental exit (or accidentally confirming) changes
I was joking about old dogs. There's a lot of bad habits that need changing.
OS is different in many ways and I think these guys have done a great job of beating out the desktop world. They've always said they would be faster than the desktop and I believe they are. You just have to find some nuggets.
-The drag n drops works amazingly well and manipulating the feature tree is a dream compared to desktop equivalents.
-The cut n paste is extremely power and more useful then the desktop equivalents.
-Selection of items, this & that and then shift select.
-No files.
-And then async, no body knows what this means async link
There will be other CAD system in the cloud and OS has set the bar really high for acceptability. It's going to be exciting to experience.

Re: Toy coaster track
@MDesign thanks for the tip. Loft and path is the way to go.
Regards.
Re: New Custom Feature: Publish Geometry
@romeograham sorry, just saved v3 which now doesn't delete any of the selected mate connectors.
Re: The Perfect Mouse for CAD
I'm currently using the Razer Naga V2 Hyperspeed mouse. It's an MMO mouse with a 12-key thumb pad that I've programmed to have my enter key, backspace, delete and all of the orthographic views (i.e. front, left, right, etc.). There is also a "switch" button that turns my thumb pad into a number pad so I can enter dimensions and such without using the keyboard.