Is there a way to move/position parts in an assembly without mates?

olaf_huber644

I am quite new to onshape, went already through several tutorials and now wonder:
How can I move/transform parts in an assembly without using mates?
Imagine such a layout were I want position blocks and switch between with named positions:
e.g.
"all in line A"
"red in line B, rest in line A" (as in the picture)
"red in line C, rest in line A"
And so on...
I tried with mates and suppressing/unsuppressing in Combination with named positions.
But that seem not to work.
I also tried dragging the triade, but that only seem to work with entering values for transform/rotate and to orient the triade on the part occurency.

This is a test use case but the idea is:
How can I simulate/animate a certain sequence?
E.g. for a presentation I want to animate a sequence for a tool change with several steps:
1. Move red block from a A1 to C1
2. Move yellow block from A2 to B1
3. etc.
Is Onshape capable of such functions?
 

MBartlett21

olaf_huber644 said:

In NX there is the concept of "Arrangements" which seem to equal to the "Named Positions" in Onshape. Is there a way to assign different values/suppress/unsuppress to the mates in terms of being "Arrangement-dependent"?
So that switch through the named positions might do the job of "Animation"?

This will hopefully be done by the upcoming assembly configurations

emagdalenaC2i

II think you'll have to wait for assembly-level configurations to be added to Onshape 

And then you can not simulate / animate that sequence. But you can create that simulation with other applications
I don't know if you can do that with KeyShot (available in the App store)

MBartlett21

@john_mcclary did something like this a while ago:
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/10484/rubiks-cube-mate-animation/p1

john_mcclary

It depends on how much effort and time you want to devote to it.

Onshape "can" but it really isn't built for it. You will need to have a continuous path that each block can slide along for each step of the animation. (Tangent mate)

Then create some relations that can help "push" the block along the paths.

Concept is simple, but it is very very tedious. Eventually Onshape should have some proper animation tools. But until then, treat it like a piece of clockwork. then hide the clockwork from view

olaf_huber644

Hello @MBartlett21_CSM and @john_mcclary
I saw some videos of the cube, but soon found: this really is/will be "tedious".
BTW: thank you for that term, I am not a native speaker but this reflects exactly what it is... 

I hoped that there might have been some other solution.

But as you seem to have some knowledge about, I might as you as well.

In NX there is the concept of "Arrangements" which seem to equal to the "Named Positions" in Onshape. Is there a way to assign different values/suppress/unsuppress to the mates in terms of being "Arrangement-dependent"?
So that switch through the named positions might do the job of "Animation"?

MBartlett21

olaf_huber644 said:

In NX there is the concept of "Arrangements" which seem to equal to the "Named Positions" in Onshape. Is there a way to assign different values/suppress/unsuppress to the mates in terms of being "Arrangement-dependent"?
So that switch through the named positions might do the job of "Animation"?

This will hopefully be done by the upcoming assembly configurations

john_mcclary

There are named positions you can use, but may not be parametric.

There are also disylay states which will alow you to show/hide parts.

Niether will animate though. But you can take screenshots and make a video that way