Improvements to Onshape - October 20th, 2018

cody_armstrong

It has been 3 weeks since our last update of Onshape and we are ready again with another big list of improvements. Many of these have been highly requested, so let's get started.

CAD IMPROVEMENTS

DISPLAY STATES

You can now create Display States in Onshape Assemblies. Display States allow you to capture the hide/show state of parts or subassemblies and reuse it in the future.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/ps5jkmiztt

IMPORT IMPROVEMENTS

Improvements have been made to the import process to make it more intuitive. The import dialog has been changed to better illustrate the various import options and there is now smarter logic in place to handle importing geometry in the correct orientation.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/m73d2xnop5

NEW ARROWHEAD TYPES IN ONSHAPE DRAWINGS

You will find two new arrowhead types in the Drawing properties flyout. They include no arrowhead and a tick mark.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/kes2nvg7lh

EDIT VIEW LABEL PROPERTIES IN ONSHAPE DRAWINGS

You can now edit the font, font size, font style, and color of view labels in Onshape Drawings. You will find these new options in the Drawing Properties flyout under the "Views" tab.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/6srmudj80y

EXPORT PERMISSIONS FOR ANONYMOUS LINKS

You will find a new "export" option when creating an anonymous link to share. This is useful if you want to share with someone that does not have an Onshape account but needs the ability to export your model.

WARNING WHEN CREATING VERSION WITH OUTDATED DRAWING

Now when you create a version in a Document that has an out of date drawing you will see a warning.

EXPORT MESH

You can now export mesh geometry to STL, Parasolid, Collada, and Rhino. In the past, mesh data could not be exported.

PROFESSIONAL FEATURES

SET CUSTOM PROPERTIES WITH FEATURESCRIPT

You can now set custom properties in FeatureScript with the setProperty function. This new functionality in setProperty allows the FeatureScript author to assign values from the model directly to properties of that part.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/bstu3dxe9e

CUSTOM REVISION SCHEMES

You can now define a custom revision scheme using an imported text file. 

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/5h5q4xordc

ENTERPRISE FEATURES

ALLOW ANONYMOUS LINK SHARING

As an admin or owner of an Enterprise in Onshape, you will find a new global permission to allow anonymous link sharing. This is off by default and was not possible in the past.

FILTER BY FOLDER IN ONSHAPE ENTERPRISE

When viewing the Project Dashboard, you can now filter by a folder within the Project.



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 and over the next few days these features will also be available in Documents created before the date of this update.

owen_sparks

Nice, very much like the set custom property feature.
Thanks folks,
Owen S.

romeograham

I like the "export for anonymous links" feature!

Thanks for the hard work!
Romeo

jakeramsley

owen_sparks said:

Nice, very much like the set custom property feature.
Thanks folks,
Owen S.

Hi owen_sparks,

This is a document my coworker Jason Slingerland put together for a couple examples (it uses standard properties and his company owned property, but can be easily modified).  The bounding box is put in Title 2 property and mass is put in Title 3.  This isn't meant to be how computed properties are done, but is an understandable example of how to use setting custom properties.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/0ce17b6f297c6baae1ea4f31/w/bf0718cfe1b17361423f8bb1/e/07de51f875e8975ca4de848c

billyzelsnack

Display states is super useful. Awesome. Hopefully the refresh button will make its way to named positions soon too.

moran_hagor

billyzelsnack said:

Display states is super useful. Awesome. Hopefully the refresh button will make its way to named positions soon too.

Thanks folks for all the good work!
I'd be very happy to see under display states, the ability to set new appearances to parts (that will only apply at assembly mode) , and the ability to be able to create a drawing that will not show parts that are hidden in that display state.

romeograham

jakeramsley said:

owen_sparks said:

Nice, very much like the set custom property feature.
Thanks folks,
Owen S.

Hi owen_sparks,

This is a document my coworker Jason Slingerland put together for a couple examples (it uses standard properties and his company owned property, but can be easily modified).  The bounding box is put in Title 2 property and mass is put in Title 3.  This isn't meant to be how computed properties are done, but is an understandable example of how to use setting custom properties.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/0ce17b6f297c6baae1ea4f31/w/bf0718cfe1b17361423f8bb1/e/07de51f875e8975ca4de848c

@jakeramsley do you have any idea how to get the Mass property in this example to fill in the actual mass of the part? (the linked example allows you put put in a value, but doesn't return the calculated mass of the part).

thanks!

3dcad

Nice set once again.

My favorite would be assembly display states and there's already good ideas to make it even better by @moran_hagor

For import, I was hoping to see drag&drop area for quick import from email client. It's frustrating to save locally first and then use file dialog to search something named 982638476_82934.dwg or to come up with a new name before you have seen what's in..

There's few things that I would expect to get more priority at this point:

- colored faces/features,

- search only MY documents by default when inserting into assy,

- other requests that flow on top of the list in forum ir list

...I think that's all, no wait there's one more

- Assembly configurations !!

john_mcclary

Thanks for working the weekend again

awesome we can set custom properties from FS

but I have to be honest, I'm disappointed with display states. They really aren't very useful at this point. Other than a slight quality of life improvement for some.

If I had to rank what display states core functions by % of time I've used a feature in that way in SW over the years, it would look like this:
5% Hide/Show parts for design review / quick way to dig into the guts of a model repeatably
5% Change color/transparency of parts (for similar reasons as hide/show)
10% All of the above per configuration (as an option that can be toggled, it adds a lot to configurations power, whenever asm configs come)
80% Use all of the above in drawings

Seems like an exaggeration, but I'm being brutally honest with myself. Everything needs to be able to be represented in the drawings; Otherwise why bother. Most of the time I will use isolate to dig into a model while designing, because I have the 3D tools to change what I want see whenever I need. But when I release a drawing to the shop, they can only see the paper and can't just isolate or hide the guard that is covering the mechanism.
The main use of display states is to hide those obstructing parts for the shop drawings. Looks like I will still need to manage multiple assemblies just to hide a guard still... 

Don't mean to be a hater, but my god, you kinda dropped the ball on this one I mean, it's a good start, but I really really hope to see it used in drawings in the next update.

michael_mcclain

I agree with @john_mcclary that the functionality isn't complete feeling if not extended all the way to drawings.

But knowing how Onshape develops I feel that it is a foundation for more than just one feature/functionality and we will see something truly exciting in the next 3-6 weeks.

I assume they released this since it is ready. Then they will alter future course/behavior of the functionality once in the court of public opinion and the improvement requests start coming.

john_mcclary

Right, I have a lot of faith in Onshape's dev team, but honestly I would have not released something that is 5% useful, when just a small step into drawings would put it at 85% useful.

owen_sparks

Hi folks.

In a similar thought train I presume the custom property id deconflicts identically named custom properties across companies?

If so this raises two questions:-
(Q1) Does that mean we can share documents with custom properties outside of a company, with or without setting them with FS and not break stuff?
(Q2) Does this same strategy lend itself to Company-wide or World-wide sharing of labels?  This would rate highly for us. If so I'm all for the laying the groundwork approach.  

Owen S.

MBartlett21

romeo_graham392 said:

jakeramsley said:

owen_sparks said:

Nice, very much like the set custom property feature.
Thanks folks,
Owen S.

Hi owen_sparks,

This is a document my coworker Jason Slingerland put together for a couple examples (it uses standard properties and his company owned property, but can be easily modified).  The bounding box is put in Title 2 property and mass is put in Title 3.  This isn't meant to be how computed properties are done, but is an understandable example of how to use setting custom properties.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/0ce17b6f297c6baae1ea4f31/w/bf0718cfe1b17361423f8bb1/e/07de51f875e8975ca4de848c

@jakeramsley do you have any idea how to get the Mass property in this example to fill in the actual mass of the part? (the linked example allows you put put in a value, but doesn't return the calculated mass of the part).

thanks!

You can use this FS, which you can put a density or weight into and it will set the part's material
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/3ca261a95938af152088fca8

brian_brady

john_mcclary said:

Right, I have a lot of faith in Onshape's dev team, but honestly I would have not released something that is 5% useful, when just a small step into drawings would put it at 85% useful.

THIS. I would rather Onshape say we have nothing completely ready to put in an update than to give us something that leads only to disappointment because it is essentially useless as is. Good design is often knowing when to say "no" to something. 

jakeramsley

john_mcclary said:

Seems like an exaggeration, but I'm being brutally honest with myself. Everything needs to be able to be represented in the drawings; Otherwise why bother. Most of the time I will use isolate to dig into a model while designing, because I have the 3D tools to change what I want see whenever I need. But when I release a drawing to the shop, they can only see the paper and can't just isolate or hide the guard that is covering the mechanism.
The main use of display states is to hide those obstructing parts for the shop drawings. Looks like I will still need to manage multiple assemblies just to hide a guard still... 

Don't mean to be a hater, but my god, you kinda dropped the ball on this one I mean, it's a good start, but I really really hope to see it used in drawings in the next update.

Hi john_mcclary,

Being able to hide/show things in drawings was one of, among others, the main motivators for prioritizing display states.  Please be reassured that it isn't something we simply forgot to do.

As the release manager at Onshape, the decision to release something or not is ultimately mine.  It is always an interesting process to weigh the trade-offs of usefulness and completeness when deciding whether functionality is part of our release.  In the case of display states, I feel the functionality that was released is useful and helpful to at least a subset of our users.  I feel holding it to help make a bigger marketing splash and releasing it with a more complete set of features meant delaying that utility to those users.

brucebartlett

Great to see display states come into assemblies . This will be very useful, I spend a lot of time setting up and re-setting up assemblies displays. I look forward to seeing these, along with positions being available in drawings too, this is a must have and also hopefully we will see full blown configs in the not to distance future. 

jakeramsley

owen_sparks said:

Hi folks.

In a similar thought train I presume the custom property id deconflicts identically named custom properties across companies?

If so this raises two questions:-
(Q1) Does that mean we can share documents with custom properties outside of a company, with or without setting them with FS and not break stuff?
(Q2) Does this same strategy lend itself to Company-wide or World-wide sharing of labels?  This would rate highly for us. If so I'm all for the laying the groundwork approach.  

Owen S.

Hi owen_sparks,

Custom properties are owned by a company and the ability to use them in a document is dependent on the owner of the document.  If a document is owned by a company, then those set of custom properties can be used.  Sharing the document to a user external to the company (either explicitly or by link) will not break those properties.

IDs are used throughout Onshape to be unique identifiers.  In some cases we enforce other fields to be unique as well, for various reasons, but by using IDs it allows individual users/companies/team/etc to do similar things without conflicts.

owen_sparks

@jakeramsley

Thanks for the info, and the example doc you posted about earlier, much appreciated.

Also whilst I'm here, I'd like to say we're delighted with the display states as they stand.

We're mostly gleefully immune to drawings in this dept., if we can't specify the part from the solid we don't want to get involved, though a new laser may drag us back to times past of generating blasted dxf's! Boooooooooooooooo.

Cheers,

Owen S.

john_mcclary

@owen_sparks well, you don't need to generate a drawing to make a flat dxf. You may be able to avoid that even still

owen_sparks

Thanks @john_mcclary Fingers crossed. 

I wish the export face to dxf would include all faces at the same z height; as it stands there's still a lot of projecting stuff onto a new sketch to catch all the islands that tend to exist, especially tedious if text is driven by configurations.  We need a project all, not just the bits OS feels like onto sketch...  I really, rally, really, like not having to deal with this crap when generating CNC toolpaths from step files!

Ho-hum, if we have a baby death star to play with it'll all be worth it in the end.

Thanks for the hint,

Owen S.

owen_sparks

@jakeramsley

Quick follow up on the custom property via FS. 

If the property is a string then all is easy.  If its a list then it'd be great if the IDE presented the options defined in a similar "intelisense-like" list when writing the FS.  Is this likely to make it's way onto the radar?  Seems a bit daft to have to keep checking back onto the company properties page to see what the options are for a property.

Thanks, and keep up the awesome development,

Owen S.

adrian_vlzkz

Everytime there is a Pro or Enterprise update :

ilya_baran

@owen_sparks

If the property is a string then all is easy.  If its a list then it'd be great if the IDE presented the options defined in a similar "intelisense-like" list when writing the FS.  Is this likely to make it's way onto the radar?  Seems a bit daft to have to keep checking back onto the company properties page to see what the options are for a property.

This was discussed but is not scheduled.  Please create an improvement request to help us prioritize.

owen_sparks

@ilya_baran WILCO

Jake_Rosenfeld

One thing that could be a nice workaround for custom property ids for now is to create a FeatureScript tab in a shared document that has functions like these for each of your custom properties:

export function getFooBarosityCustomPropertyId()
{
    return "aabbcc1122334455ggbb";
}

Then whenever you want to make a custom feature that needs to change your custom property, you can import the file that contains all your custom property id getters and just call the one-source-of-truth function.

owen_sparks

@Jake_Rosenfeld, that's great, you should really consider doing this for a living.

Thanks, Owen S.

jakeramsley

owen_sparks said:

@Jake_Rosenfeld, that's great, you should really consider doing this for a living.

Thanks, Owen S.

He's the most talented Jake we have at Onshape.

owen_sparks

@jakeramsley
I really think you should defend your honour and challenge him to a duel.

john_mceleney

owen_sparks said:

@jakeramsley
I really think you should defend your honour and challenge him to a duel.

Oh I don't think that'll be a fair fight : -)

john_mceleney

john_mceleney said:

owen_sparks said:

@jakeramsley
I really think you should defend your honour and challenge him to a duel.

Oh I don't think that'll be a fair fight : -)

Just to be clear, I am not saying for whom it would not be fair : -)

owen_sparks

So is this a coding duel, a flintlocks at dawn duel, a star-wars trivia duel or a tequila shots duel...