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Re: Custom features - 3d Points and Variable Pitch Helix
It would be really nice if this feature (or others) had the ability to add a point on a curve closest to a reference. Similar to how @EvanReese 's FaceCurves can take a reference vertex to add an isoparametric curve closest to a reference.

Re: Cutting dimensions for tubes, parallel to the tube.
@S_Laurent PS. If you have a feature request and you're a paid user it's best to submit it to the support team via a ticket (upvoting the thread doesn't hurt though)
They prioritise tickets from paid users over requests in the forum. And the support team is also the ux team so they triage and manage the improvement requests
You can submit tickets by email, via the 'contact support' button in onshape or at https://onshape.zendesk.com
Re: Cutting dimensions for tubes, parallel to the tube.
That's what we end up doing most of the time, but it's quite time consuming !
I hadn't noticed the perpendicular snapping, this seems to be the fastest method, thank you for the tip !
Thank you all for your answers, I've also upvoted the alignment request. It sure would save a lot of time for us !
Turn off pre-highlighting for presentations
I'm coming from many years of Creo, and in that software, I would set my selection filter to "annotations" (and I almost never had any). This means when I moved my mouse around my screen my coworker over my shoulder or on a screen share call could better see what I was pointing at.
Thank you.
Re: Cutting dimensions for tubes, parallel to the tube.
Sorry, third option I just realised to hack around it using a sketch (but a very tedious way to create a dimension):
Re: Cutting dimensions for tubes, parallel to the tube.
There's no aligned dimension in drawings (although you can do an aligned measurement in the part studio). There's an improvement request here:
Depending on the level of precision you need, you can get pretty close doing it like this:
Alternatively, if you draw one part per view, you can just re-align your view:
Re: How to keep the width of a loft constant.
I think this is just a geometric issue. If your angle formed a 45° it would be equal, but the more it doesn't the sharper it gets like this. Could you just draw the shape you want from the side view and use Extrude instead?
Re: Missign references - floating and unattached red coincident icon
When editing a sketch, do your best to move objects around. When a line or what ever is deleted and replaced it will get a new ID which will cascade through newer features in the list. Any sketches, extrudes, sweeps etc. can be affected. Faces used for sketch will have a new ID as well.
Had a look at the whole parts studio. I'm not sure why some folks draw sketches out of place and transforms them after. Makes a lot of extra work. Here is a sample showing how much shorter the feature list can be.
I find for me that making sketches in place is less confusing, especially as the project continues.
PS. I left the fillets out so you'll have something to do. They're B——H
However they can be done on one protrusion and arrayed same as protrusion.
Re: Adding dimensions to sketch features via API
I've done this before, and unfortunately there is no documentation/resources.
My process was to essentially reverse engineer the data structure of a sketch.
Manually make a sketch dimension, and do a "Get Features" api call. Look at what the result is, and then replicate.
Adding dimensions to sketch features via API
Though there are guides published for adding dimensions to drawings here, I can't find any sources for how to add a dimension to a part studio. The closest I've gotten is by creating a BTMSketchConstraint2 with "DISTANCE" as the constraint type. That applies a distance dimension, but I'm struggling to get it to reference sketch features correctly. I've tried creating parameters for a sketch line (BTMSketchCurveSegment155, wrapped in a BTMParameterString149) as well as passing two points (both BTMSketchPoint158 wrapped in a parameter string as well). In both cases the constraint is received but the feature solves with an error complaining that the references didn't resolve correctly.
The best source I've found for adding sketch constraints is the onshape_client package (now archived, though I can't seem to find a superseding repo yet). The tests there successfully apply coincident constraints using the "features" POST api call, which I've replicated. I don't see any information for how to extend this to a dimension however. I'm looking to see if anyone knows of additional guides/examples/documentations, or has the innate knowledge themselves on how to do dimensions. Thanks in advance.
For reference, here is an example of the JSON body code which is successfully received and solved for by Onshape, though producing unresolved errors in the model (passing two points as the parameters, the points were successfully solved for in the model):
{ 'bt_type': 'BTMSketchConstraint-2',
'constraint_type': 'DISTANCE',
'driven_dimension': True,
'entity_id': 'lengthId',
'parameters': [ { 'bt_type': 'BTMParameterString-149',
'parameter_id': 'localFirst',
'value': 'myPoint' },
{ 'bt_type': 'BTMParameterString-149',
'parameter_id': 'localSecond',
'value': 'my2ndPoint' }] }