Improvements to Onshape - October 20th, 2018

Jake_Rosenfeld

Wouldn't be fair to all of our users if Jake and I made enemies of one another

Stefan_DMS

It would be cool if you could add cross-section to the display states, we use assembly cross-sections quite a bit and would save a bunch of clicks.

philip_thomas

@Stefan_DMS - that's a really good idea, please submit it as an enhancement request.

romeograham

mbartlett21 said:

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

Thanks!
That's a great update to your FS (which I looked at a while ago - but don't think it had this functionality. With this one, I can finally have part mass (weight) updating on drawings.

Could you udpate it to be able to push the volume of the part as well? I'll poke around and see if I can get it to work in g/cm^3 (all my parts are under 2kg).

Thanks again @mbartlett21

Romeo

StephenG

I find it hard to believe that valuable development resources where wasted on Display States.

I want to echo @john_mcclary 's post; one of the primary reasons to establish various hide/shown states of instances in an assembly is so it can be leveraged in a drawing. 

According to the recent "Ask Me Anything with Jon Hirschtick" webinar, assembly configuration are coming soon. "Display State" functionality is something that should be intrinsic to Assembly Configurations. Display State functionality has all the appearance of a band-aid; the sooner it is removed the better.

Things are getting messy in the product: Assembly Context, Named Position and now Display State functionality all should be possible with a properly implemented Assembly Configuration capability.

My confidence in Onshape's ability to focus on and deliver important missing functionality has been shaken.   

owen_sparks

I'd like to think that it's because Onshape are writing assembly configurations that we have display States.

If the code was written for configs, and this bit was ready now, then I'm happy it was pushed on its own.  It's useful to me today, and I couldn't do it last week. Free upgrade.

The only time I felt a hint of an unfinished feature bring released was v1 of sheet metal and that was right after the forum was flooded with "just release it already" comments...

OwS

MBartlett21

@romeo_graham392
I may be able to add that.
Glad to see that it's useful! (I hadn't tested it with custom properties because I couldn't create any)

billy2

@Stefan_DMS if you write up an enhancement, please add transparency to the wish list.

Stefan_DMS

philip_thomas said:

@Stefan_DMS - that's a really good idea, please submit it as an enhancement request.

Added here:

 https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/10368/cross-section-in-display-states/p1?new=1

emagdalenaC2i

En este enlace podéis ver las Novedades de Onshape en español
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQVMHbpGfgY

Stefan_DMS

Just found this feature, don't know when it was updated but I love it. The auto check for drawing updates when versioning a part!! This is such a good feature, just wanted to post this so others can see more cool stuff about Onshape. 

romeograham

mbartlett21 said:

@romeo_graham392
I may be able to add that.
Glad to see that it's useful! (I hadn't tested it with custom properties because I couldn't create any)

It works well to get the weight on the drawing...but the decimals are bananas!:

Is that an easy thing to limit (or give the user some control) ?

Thanks again!

john_mcclary

romeo_graham392 said:

mbartlett21 said:

@romeo_graham392
I may be able to add that.
Glad to see that it's useful! (I hadn't tested it with custom properties because I couldn't create any)

It works well to get the weight on the drawing...but the decimals are bananas!:

Is that an easy thing to limit (or give the user some control) ?

Thanks again!

var mass = roundToPrecision(Mass / kg, 2);

MBartlett21

Done:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/3ca261a95938af152088fca8

romeograham

Wow @mbartlett21
That's awesome!
...now...could you pull the density info from the Material property (if it's been set) ?

Thanks for working on this featureScript!

john_mcclary

we have been talking about that on another thread. Onshape chimed in and said it ain't gonna happen.
They are concerned about performance when the part studio updates (as I understand it)

Cache_River_Mill

Onshape, this is excellent work. If you ever need a testimony, let us know!

Thank you!

darren_7

cache_river_millworks said:

Onshape, this is excellent work. If you ever need a testimony, let us know!

Thank you!

Much appreciated!  I will reach out to you in a private message.

romeograham

mbartlett21 said:

Done:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/3ca261a95938af152088fca8

I'm using this FeatureScript happily....

However, I run into issues I think when there's already a value in my target Custom Properties that I put there manually before this FeatureScript came along. Basically, the FS doesn't seem to populate the field any more.

I have tried deleting all values in the Custom Property, and using the FS again.

Can you explain how it is supposed to work (in terms of pushing data to the Custom Properties (which I select by pasting in the ID) ? 

How / when does it push the information to the custom property? 

Thanks again!
Romeo

romeograham

john_mcclary said:

we have been talking about that on another thread. Onshape chimed in and said it ain't gonna happen.
They are concerned about performance when the part studio updates (as I understand it)

Are you referring to my request to pull density data? OR something else?

MBartlett21

@romeo_graham392

Once you have set a custom property, you cannot clear it.
There was a discussion somewhere else on the forum about it and Onshape said they were working on a solution.

john_mcclary

@romeo_graham392
Referring to pulling material density information from a part. They are afraid it would cause too many part updates/regens that would slow down the document.

ilya_baran

@romeo_graham392

@mbartlett21 is correct -- a manually set part property will override any FeatureScript-set part property and there's no way to clear it (support can do it, but only by deleting all manually-set part properties from a part studio).  We are working on a solution.

romeograham

@ilya_baran
Thanks.
That is a real bummer - I hope that you can find a solution for that. It seems that the only time we can use this FS is once we are 100% sure we aren't going to make any changes to the part (and that the mass will not change)....which kind of defeats the purpose. There is enormous utility (for me) in being able to see a mass or volume update on a drawing as I make changes, and as a design evolves.

However, I can override the FS-set value in a Custom Property and type in my own (non-updating) value, right?

So my workflow must be (if I want to use @mbartlett21 's FS) is to ensure that I've never put any value in the Custom Property (like, Mass) that the FS is going to populate....then I can use the FS. Any other use case: I have to put the value in manually.

Thanks
Romeo

Eric_Gauthier

Enfin la version en français! (Mes vacances sont vraiment terminées...😉)

N'hésitez pas à aimer la vidéo et à la partager avec vos amis!

https://youtu.be/ITkznz9eVHo

MBartlett21

Re:
@mbartlett21 is correct -- a manually set part property will override any FeatureScript-set part property and there's no way to clear it (support can do it, but only by deleting all manually-set part properties from a part studio).  We are working on a solution.

@ilya_baran
Is there a way to do it from the API?

ilya_baran

@mbartlett21
I don't believe so.

owen_sparks

Apropos of nothing how is the stress level in Massachusetts today?

brucebartlett

owen_sparks said:

Apropos of nothing how is the stress level in Massachusetts today?

Hopefully, they are configurable stress levels

john_mcclary

brucebartlett said:

owen_sparks said:

Apropos of nothing how is the stress level in Massachusetts today?

Hopefully, they are configurable stress levels

ICWUTUDIDTHAR