Turning assembly sketches on in drawings

brucebartlett

I have some layout sketches which have been added to an assembly. Is there a way to turn these on to show them on the drawing?

MBartlett21

There does not seem to be a way to do this.
You can create a sketch in a Part Studio and insert a view of the sketch, then align it to the assembly view you want.

BMcGaffey

Bumping this as we desperately need this as well. We do a lot of lighting/optics work, so assembly sketches in drawings for approval are a must have. We lose all the accuracy placing the sketches by hand. Hope to see it soon in a new release  

MBartlett21

There does not seem to be a way to do this.
You can create a sketch in a Part Studio and insert a view of the sketch, then align it to the assembly view you want.

brucebartlett

Thanks Morgan, that works until you want to add dimensions beteen the 2 views. 

BMcGaffey

Bumping this as we desperately need this as well. We do a lot of lighting/optics work, so assembly sketches in drawings for approval are a must have. We lose all the accuracy placing the sketches by hand. Hope to see it soon in a new release  

brucebartlett

Yes, I just run into this problem again yesterday. It make sense that we should be able to switch sketches on from assemblies.  

john_mcclary

+1

jacques_spillmann

+200%

brucebartlett

jacques_spillmann said:

+200%

Yes definitely needed. I don't think it's been added yet.  A workaround that I have used is making solid dummy blocks, you may even be able to use one with splits on the faces for drawing shown as a wireframe. 

BMcGaffey

We keep coming back to this requirement as well. And I think it is time for it to be pushed to the top (or as near to the top as possible :P) of Onshape's pile. It is keeping us from fully being able to utilise Onshape as we now have to go back to Solidworks to do detailed assembly sketches on drawings. Aligning them by hand in the drawing interface is not an option. We really really need this. 

brucebartlett

@MechEngMan I agree, a much greater requirement for me in assemblies than parts.  

billy2

@brucebartlett I've just been extruding datums in my layout sketches and importing surfaces into drawings.

I'd rather have sketches with multi-color assignment. I'm on your side.

james_close

Arrangement layout is different than Assembly layout in my mind and the ability to insert Assembly sketch is a requirement.
The alternative is to create Part Studio "fake" geometry to convey what is really sketch quality (lower overhead) entities.

shawnrw

+100% on this please add..

MBartlett21

There is an Improvement Request for this here:
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/9366/ability-to-show-sketches-in-assemblies-on-a-drawing/p1

romeograham

I just tried something that I think might work...it works for a simple sketch for sure.

1. In Part Studio: Create a Composite Curve with your desired sketch elements (construction geometry doesn't work, and you can only have a elements that connect at their ends, can't have multiple curves or intersecting curves). For complex sketches - might need a couple Curve features.
2. In Part Studio: Create a Composite part: select the Curves you need in the "sketch". You can also select surfaces or bodies...in the example blow, the text ("this is text....part") is also in the Composite part.
3. In Assembly: Insert Composite part
4. In Drawing: Show view of assembly - the curves in the Composite part show up in the assembly

This is clearly not what you guys are after, but for simple outline, skeleton, or bounding box type assembly sketches, this might be a temporary solution.

Couple of interesting things about this:

• The "sketch" (the composite part) can be positioned "above" or "below" your part in the the view you're after, ...Sketches are occluded by the parts if the Composite part is below - regular sketches in Part Studios show through the part. This could get quite interesting / useful if you use these Composite "sketches" in 3D views.
• Can't color the "sketch" - there are no formatting options in drawings for Curves (and since the composite part doesn't have surfaces or bodies, its appearance can't be set either).
• You can, of course, drive the Sketch>Composite Curve>Composite Part by the Assembly if you edit the Sketch in-context.
• If you don't want the "sketch" to show in multiple views of the Assembly in the drawing, you'll need to set up Display States in the Assembly that would turn off / on the "sketch" as needed in the drawing.
• in the San Diego User's Group meeting a couple of days ago, @john_mcclary showed an interesting use of composite parts as drawing blocks (like you have in SW)....I think using the Composite Part "block" in an Assembly could extend to a 3D application of Blocks. Might be useful.

john_mcclary

Interesting work around to get something like a sketch into an assembly. 

Most of the time just need a couple of entities to dimension to. This may be enough for the time being

Sure beats modifing the final product to have a tiny notch cutout just for a dim...