Large Assemblies

billy2

I wanted to see how Onshape would perform with a large data set so I loaded one of my larger assemblies.

video

I really thought I was going to break the system and was fearing pathetic performance because Onshape is an internet CAD system.

This didn't happen, I was shocked at how well the system performed. The graphics in Onshape are superior to my desktop which really surprised me.

john_mceleney

Bill,

Thanks for sharing. In your video, you show the load time in Onshape as 20 seconds. How long does it take when you open in your desktop system (SolidWorks)?

Thanks,
John

billy2

About 20 seconds, it's a push. It's not faster and it's not slower. I think it's damn good for the amount of data that's being pushed around.

Load times are equal
Graphics are superior in Onshape
Working the model is a little slower in Onshape

I typically work in sub-assemblies and wouldn't work in this top-assembly on a daily basis. I'm not concerned about the working speed because I wouldn't normally do this. This model has to be broken down into manageable data sets. It's one big blob because it was easier to import. I'm sure Onshape will get faster once assemblies mature and I build the model properly.

Overall, I could design with large data sets inside Onshape.

caradon

Yeah, Onshape graphics are super nice. I prefer them over SolidWorks.

Dries

lougallo

Awesome @bill‌! Thank you for sharing that.

jon_hirschtick

Thanks Bill! You made our day. I will pass along your praise to our graphics guys. We really thought a lot about how to make the most effective graphic display for interactive CAD.

In the future people will not ask whether a cloud product can be fast enough, they will ask whether a desktop product can be fast enough.

caradon

JonHirschtick said:

Thanks Bill! You made our day. I will pass along your praise to our graphics guys. We really thought a lot about how to make the most effective graphic display for interactive CAD.

In the future people will not ask whether a cloud product can be fast enough, they will ask whether a desktop product can be fast enough.

Jon,

Just curious...
What kind of features/aspects in particular will be much faster than desktop CAD/CAE/PDM/PLM/...?

Some things that frustrate me in desktop CAD:
*System hangs/crashes (generally speaking, not strictly limited to or caused by CAD)
*(Graphics) driver related issues
*Plug-in compatibility (or lack thereof)
*CAD app slowdown while running CPU-intensive tasks alongside (e.g. my 32 CPU thread workstation doubles as a KeyShot render farm).
*Opening/saving of large datasets
*...

Dries

jon_hirschtick

DriesV said:

Jon,

Just curious...
What kind of features/aspects in particular will be much faster than desktop CAD/CAE/PDM/PLM/...?

Some things that frustrate me in desktop CAD:
*System hangs/crashes (generally speaking, not strictly limited to or caused by CAD)
*(Graphics) driver related issues
*Plug-in compatibility (or lack thereof)
*CAD app slowdown while running CPU-intensive tasks alongside (e.g. my 32 CPU thread workstation doubles as a KeyShot render farm).
*Opening/saving of large datasets
*...

Dries

Dries,

Thanks for asking. Here's my answers:

*System hangs: we believe we have taken a big step toward reducing these with our distributed CAD architecture in the cloud. In traditional CAD a bug causes your whole CAD system to crash, interrupting you and losing work. In Onshape, the same sort of bug might happen but it only causes one of many cloud servers behind the scenes to crash. Your activity switches to another server. No interrupting you. No lost work. So far we are experiencing, we believe, a huge improvement in reliability -- do you agree?

*Graphics driver issues: hopefully reduced through our use of WebGL. Generally we hope people worry less about hardware setup. But we need to prove this out in volume with real users.

*Plug-in compatibility: we will have all users on one version of our CAD system, and plug-ins/add-ins could be in the cloud as well. Should be a *huge* reduction in compatibility issues.

*CAD app slowdown alongside CPU-intensive tasks: ahh...this one we should be able to do very very well. We already can translate many files at once (try uploading a whole bunch of STEP or Parasolid files at one time -- I personally have tried like 200 at once) without slowing down your local computer at all (well we do use the upload bandwidth). In the future, obviously, we could do things like rendering, FEA, etc in the cloud with no impact on your local PC.

*Opening/saving of large datasets: lots of ways we could use multiple cloud servers to speed this up -- over time we hope to do more and more of things that use multiple servers to speed up your work.

Jon

caradon

Thanks for the insights, Jon!

Regarding your question about reliability: so far Onshape has been rock solid. The fact that Onshape continuously saves/records every single user operation is a *huge* life saver.

Dries

martin_cooper667

I have an assembly of 4,000 parts and found that onshape was unable to open the assembly without crashing

reduced it to 1,200 and was able to open the doc, but any movement or rotation caused the browser to crash

upgraded everything my end and followed all the advise given by support but still unable to work on model

Kevin_at_BCWP

I am seriously blown away every time I use OnShape. Many times a day I hear myself saying..."How is this running in a browser on a laptop??" as my $3000 SolidWorks workstation collects dust.

fastwayjim

Here is my latest test: The current generation Ford "Coyote" 5.0 Liter V-8 engine bloc, created by importing a 124Mb step file and resulting in 24,300 surfaces.

Onshape: 1 min 44 s
Local CAD: 1 min 0 s

This is on my "$500 laptop" with on-board graphics card and wifi.

3dcad

I've been working on 3d layout model of a factory filled with machinery, conveyors, pallet shelf etc.

I will be shocked if I can pull this through with Onshape. Currently I have around 3800 parts in, I have separated docs so that there is doc for machinery, doc for production cell/line assemblies and doc for main layout assembly. Some models are just dummy place holders but for example robots are fully functional with realistic limits etc. and conveyors are realistic models with motors, bearings and all.

Currently it opens in 45sec and viewing is flawless even with laptop. Motion is already very sticky in main, but works fine in subassembly. As I get everything in place, it will be easily over 20 000 parts depending on how many exact models I can get from suppliers.

One of the production cells/lines (had to remove edges, small things look bad from distance with shaded+edges):


level of detail: