Welcome to the Onshape forum! Ask questions and join in the discussions about everything Onshape.

First time visiting? Here are some places to start:
  1. Looking for a certain topic? Check out the categories filter or use Search (upper right).
  2. Need support? Ask a question to our Community Support category.
  3. Please submit support tickets for bugs but you can request improvements in the Product Feedback category.
  4. Be respectful, on topic and if you see a problem, Flag it.

If you would like to contact our Community Manager personally, feel free to send a private message or an email.

Improvements to Onshape - March 1st, 2019

Roy_MutalikRoy_Mutalik Member, Onshape Employees Posts: 33
edited March 2019 in New in Onshape
Our third release of 2019 comes with some great usability improvements! We hope you enjoy these!

CAD IMPROVEMENTS

RE-ORDER OF SELECTIONS IN LOFT, FILL, AND OTHER FEATURES

Rather than having to delete and re-select the items, you can now re-order selections in many order-dependent features.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/aai47l433y


FILTERING WITH FEATURE FOLDERS

The Feature List now has a discoverable button to allow the filtering of the features in your Part Studio.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/wp7bc0yvzo


USING IMPLICIT MATE CONNECTORS AS FEATURE REFERENCES

There are a number of features in Onshape that accept Mate Connectors as a reference to define them. However, these Mate Connectors had to be explicitly created before they could be used. Onshape now supports the creation of Implicit Mate Connectors in these features, enabled by simply toggling a button. Take a look at how this might improve your feature workflow in the video below.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/yapt5gb1kc


ORDINATE DIMENSIONS IMPROVEMENTS

In an Ordinate Dimension stack, jogs will automatically be created to avoid overlapping other dimensions if additional text is added, or the dimension text resized. If a jog is accidentally created on an Ordinate Dimension, simply drag-and-drop the dimension to remove the jog.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/28vcnd7zk7


MEASURE IMPROVEMENTS

Measuring the distance to or from the Origin is now as simple as selecting your reference, and picking the Origin. The measurement shows in the bottom right corner.

Selecting any number of faces, even in an assembly, now shows the total area of all faces selected in the bottom right corner.



PERFORMANCE: THUMBNAILS, BROKEN-OUT SECTION, CROP, AND SECTION DEPTH VIEWS

Performance is looked at with every Onshape release. With this update, there were two performance improvements worth highlighting. First, Thumbnail caching has been improved. You will immediately experience faster performance in generating thumbnails, especially for linked documents with many tabs. Additionally, Onshape has improved view creation for Crop, Broken-out Section, and Section Depth views. This will be most noticeable on large assemblies and complex views. 

PER-USER CONFIGURATIONS

With this release, we've added functionality to make collaborating and sharing configured Part Studios and Assemblies even more convenient. 

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/0ef3ehiyki


ADDITIONAL PEM® FASTENERS

PennEnginering PEM® Flush-head (FH™) Studs and Pins have been added to to the Hole feature, and Onshape Standard content.



SEARCHING ACROSS DROPBOX AND GOOGLE DRIVE

Two releases ago, we introduced the capability to integrate with Google Drive and Dropbox. We now enable searching in these connected services. Additionally, Onshape now remembers the last location that a file was imported from or exported to within a connected cloud service. 

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/mcrbv89yim


JSON IMPORT IN FEATURESCRIPT

With this release, FeatureScript now accepts JSON imports and reference parameter selections. JSON is a lightweight data type that can structure complex datasets. This is an easy way for your Custom Features to consume output data from other tools.



For more information, check out the documentation.

PROFESSIONAL FEATURES

RELEASE COMMENTS NOTIFY USERS INVOLVED

Comments created by anyone on a pending Release Candidate now notify all those involved in the process (the creator of the Release Candidate, the Approver, and any Observers). 



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.

«1

Comments

  • Josiah_HarthcockJosiah_Harthcock Member Posts: 54 PRO
    edited March 2019
    Well this is worthwhile! Great job on the updates! And do I spy a new employee? :)
  • brucebartlettbrucebartlett Member, OS Professional, Mentor, User Group Leader Posts: 2,137 PRO
    Awesome improvements. The search filter should work well. Also, the new implicit mate connector in the part studio features will speed up workflows up.

    And the thanks for adding the remember the last location in Google drive and Dropbox! It was doing my head in navigating for each save.
    Engineer ı Product Designer ı Onshape Consulting Partner
    Twitter: @onshapetricks  & @babart1977   
  • john_mcclaryjohn_mcclary Member, Developers Posts: 3,890 PRO
    Very nice!

    Loving the implicit mate connectors, that should clean up the tree a lot! Can't tell you how many times I had to exit a command to go back and create a sketch for revolve or a hole. This is huge!

    Can't wait to test out ordinate dim improvements, and re-ordering of selections.

    That was a lot of good stuff :)
  • owen_sparksowen_sparks Member, Developers Posts: 2,660 PRO
    edited March 2019
    Howdy folks.
    Great updates. I'm especially impressed with the implicit mate connector functionality, that is going to get used daily, outstanding. :+1:
    Thanks all, Owen S.

    Also, hello @Roy_Mutalik 🕵️
    May I ask who you are and what you do at Onshape?
    Business Systems and Configuration Controller
    HWM-Water Ltd
  • jakeramsleyjakeramsley Member, Moderator, Onshape Employees, Developers Posts: 657
    Well this is worthwhile! Great job on the updates! And do I spy a new employee? :)
    Yes, Roy is a (relatively) new employee on our Strategic Enterprise team who has been cutting his teeth by running some of our instructor lead trainings.  We are very excited to have him.
    Jake Ramsley

    Director of Quality Engineering & Release Manager              onshape.com
  • brian_bradybrian_brady Member, Developers Posts: 505 EDU
    @brian_brady , look, holes without sketches, yay, how awesome is that?
    Owen.
    Very awesome. 
  • Ed_McGuireEd_McGuire OS Professional Posts: 24 PRO
    Love the RE-ORDER OF SELECTIONS, yet it needs to be expanded to mate connectors.  yes, we can flip, rotate & .......  but instead of doing a negative offset, reordering"flipping" the two selections would be very nice!!!  
  • yong_kimyong_kim Member Posts: 30 ✭✭
    Thanks, Onshape Forever.
  • Henk_de_VlaamHenk_de_Vlaam Member, Developers Posts: 237 ✭✭✭
    edited March 2019

    Youghee, https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/5448/hole-feature-integrate-placement-facility#latest has been completed.

    What an elegant way to locate the holes ‘on the fly’ without the need of sketching points first. It is even possible now to drill the holes slanting. However, then arises an undercut. The workaround is moving the Mate Connector along the Z-axis, but that offset can conflict with the design intent, e.g. when the 'drill angle' changes the value can be too small (or too big because the hole cuts unexpected elements then). Is there in this case a possibility to generate the hole in both sides without translation of the Z-axis?


    Henk de Vlaam (NL)
  • MBartlett21MBartlett21 Member, OS Professional, Developers Posts: 2,034 EDU
    @H_de_V
    Do you mean extend the hole backwards?
    mb - draftsman - also FS author: View FeatureScripts
    IR for AS/NZS 1100
  • NeilCookeNeilCooke Moderator, Onshape Employees Posts: 5,308
    @H_de_V, in this case, the only solution would be to use Delete Face afterwards, though it would be a good improvement request.
    Senior Director, Technical Services, EMEAI
  • Henk_de_VlaamHenk_de_Vlaam Member, Developers Posts: 237 ✭✭✭
    edited March 2019
    @H_de_V
    Do you mean extend the hole backwards?
    Yes, so that the half filling of the hole disappears.
    Henk de Vlaam (NL)
  • Henk_de_VlaamHenk_de_Vlaam Member, Developers Posts: 237 ✭✭✭
    edited March 2019
    NeilCooke said:
    @H_de_V, in this case, the only solution would be to use Delete Face afterwards, though it would be a good improvement request.
    Thank you Neil. That's the way to keep design intent (untill the angle returns to 0º :smile:). I made the IR https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/11259/extrude-angled-hole-in-two-directions/p1?new=1.
    Henk de Vlaam (NL)
  • Evan_ReeseEvan_Reese Member Posts: 2,060 PRO
    Implicit Mate Connectors for the win!
    Evan Reese / Principal and Industrial Designer with Ovyl
    Website: ovyl.io
  • billy2billy2 Member, OS Professional, Mentor, Developers, User Group Leader Posts: 2,014 PRO
    Welcome @Roy_Mutalik

    Implicit Mate Connectors for the win x 2

  • PrachiPrachi Member, OS Professional Posts: 262 ✭✭✭
    Implicit mate connectors.  Woo Hoo
  • konstantin_shiriazdanovkonstantin_shiriazdanov Member Posts: 1,221 ✭✭✭✭✭
    The best thing with MC's is that they now are instantly avaliable for sketch definition
  • john_mcclaryjohn_mcclary Member, Developers Posts: 3,890 PRO
    @Roy_Mutalik Welcome to the forums. Have fun shaping the future of CAD ;)
  • johannes_wjohannes_w Member Posts: 25 PRO
    It's so cool how you guys sit down and think of ways of how to improve every bit of this awesome piece of software. And of course also how you respond to the community.
    I work with all major CAD systems that are out there and one thing really astonished me. In my experience, every CAD software has a few features or workflow tricks that really are awesome and improve productivity a lot. But in every CAD it's something different so you always think why didn't they do it the way it is done in this program and the other way around. But in onshape, you took all the great things and packed it into one single software.

    Implicit mate connectors are just perfect! This update saved my weekend believe me! Keep up this awesome work and stay loyal to the community!

    God bless you!
  • NeilCookeNeilCooke Moderator, Onshape Employees Posts: 5,308
    The best thing with MC's is that they now are instantly avaliable for sketch definition
    Absolutely! When you use MCs as a sketch plane for Sweeps or Extrudes with offsets you can immediately reduce the number of Planes and feature clutter without losing design intent. 
    Senior Director, Technical Services, EMEAI
  • brucebartlettbrucebartlett Member, OS Professional, Mentor, User Group Leader Posts: 2,137 PRO
    Is there any reason that the part filter doesn't show related sketches?
    Engineer ı Product Designer ı Onshape Consulting Partner
    Twitter: @onshapetricks  & @babart1977   
  • Henk_de_VlaamHenk_de_Vlaam Member, Developers Posts: 237 ✭✭✭
    NeilCooke said:
    The best thing with MC's is that they now are instantly avaliable for sketch definition
    Absolutely! When you use MCs as a sketch plane for Sweeps or Extrudes with offsets you can immediately reduce the number of Planes and feature clutter without losing design intent. 
    @NeilCooke and @konstantin_shiriazdanov,
    With this new functionality (also new as sketch reference?) it would be nice to rotate a MC along two (or even 3?) axis. Can this already be done in a way or do we need an IR?

    Then a sketch plane and tilted hole can be placed under every angle relative to the origin entity.
    In this picture the extra 'Rotation about X' should do the job.


    Henk de Vlaam (NL)
  • konstantin_shiriazdanovkonstantin_shiriazdanov Member Posts: 1,221 ✭✭✭✭✭
    H_de_V said:
    With this new functionality (also new as sketch reference?) it would be nice to rotate a MC along two (or even 3?) axis. Can this already be done in a way or do we need an IR?
    agree, todays ability to define only one rotation for MC is pretty limiting, I think we should be able to perform the sequence of MC orientation changes of any length, not just 3 axis linear offset and 1 axis rotation. I have an IR for using triad manipulator for this - https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/11258/triad-manipulator-for-mate-connector-orientation-adjustment#latest

  • Henk_de_VlaamHenk_de_Vlaam Member, Developers Posts: 237 ✭✭✭
    agree, todays ability to define only one rotation for MC is pretty limiting, I think we should be able to perform the sequence of MC orientation changes of any length, not just 3 axis linear offset and 1 axis rotation. [...]

    Do you mean resulting in a MC at an undefined location? I this wise? One wants to have specific distances and angles to keep design intent, isn't it?
    Henk de Vlaam (NL)
  • konstantin_shiriazdanovkonstantin_shiriazdanov Member Posts: 1,221 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2019
    H_de_V said:
    agree, todays ability to define only one rotation for MC is pretty limiting, I think we should be able to perform the sequence of MC orientation changes of any length, not just 3 axis linear offset and 1 axis rotation. [...]

    Do you mean resulting in a MC at an undefined location? I this wise? One wants to have specific distances and angles to keep design intent, isn't it?
    I mean that with triad manipulator we could perform any sequence of MC orientation changes - not just 3 linear and then 1 rotational as it is now, for example you could rotate it around triad X, then rotate around triad Y and then move along triad Z - which is not possible today. Also would be nice to log this transform sequence in the MC feature inteface as list input so that we could edit it at any stage.
  • Henk_de_VlaamHenk_de_Vlaam Member, Developers Posts: 237 ✭✭✭
    edited March 2019
    konstantin_shiriazdanov said:

    [...] Also would be nice to log this transform sequence in the MC feature interface as list input so that we could edit it at any stage.
    @konstantin_shiriazdanov

     That's what I mean. 
    Henk de Vlaam (NL)
Sign In or Register to comment.