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How can we make Section Views awesome in Onshape?
andy_morris
Moderator, Onshape Employees Posts: 87 
We have had a lot of requests for section views and we'd like your detailed feedback on what would make an awesome section view tool.
I am interested in what you most frequently use sections views for as well as the workflows you use to set them up.
I am interested in what you most frequently use sections views for as well as the workflows you use to set them up.
Andy Morris / Head of Product Design / Onshape, Inc.
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I use sections for design review meetings, for quick checks of part interference, for creating documentation via screen capture (when creating a sectioned drawing is overkill), and for selecting model elements that would otherwise be a slower process using 'select other' to drill through the model.
I prefer things simple in the modeler. Select (or create) a plane and activate (preferably with a hot key) a section on that plane. Section direction should have a default so I can do it quickly (probably cut away the side I'm viewing from) and since selecting internal elements and design reviews are a big use case, I'd like to be able to toggle between the last section and no section easily (section rebuild time breaks flow so bonus points if you can keep it short.)
It's important that one can select parts, lines, and surfaces created by the section for measuring and other operations.
If I need a permanent section (a placeholder for someone else doing documentation or otherwise retracing my steps) then I'll create a cut that is unsuppressed for a specific configuration. It's simple and works for complicated sections (non linear cut lines, situations that benefit from a revolved cut (a pie shaped section), etc).
Creating Sections for drawings are different but given the tags on the post I'm guessing that's not what you are asking about.
SW has done a very good job with their section view and have refined it to the point that I have little criticism for it. I find that I use section frequently when I'm doing turned parts that fit into each other like this Magnetic drive below. Like Kevin, I'm finding that I'm dropping a lot of screen grabs of section views into PowerPoint these days, to make presentations for clients. One simple thing you could do better (if SW doesn't beat you to it) is to adopted the body or component color for the cap of the section. It would make understanding sections much clearer.
Mark
Also, I'm not sure when it happened, but one or two revs ago, SW enabled the ability to measure the section cap which is fantastic. One pet peeve is that when you are normal to the section view and building a sketch, it is difficult to select the back edge for dimensioning or making constraints; finding that I have to rotate my view slightly in order to pick the back edge.
Like Kevin, I think Spaceclaim does a very good job in editability in section views.
@mbiasotti
In SW, if you uncheck 'Keep cap color', the section caps already take the body/component color.
Dries
In SW, if you uncheck 'Keep cap color', the section caps already take the body/component color.
Wow, Thanks Dries - I did not know that!
I am thinking of the ability to section an area, pull up the measure tool, select a combination of enclosed areas, get the calculated area, and also see second moment of area. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_moment_of_area
Just brainstorming out loud, but would there be any advantage to defining a series of section slices all at once so that a user could step through a section set with a tab key to see how the geometry changes? I think when most of us use a section tool for the first time we drag the section back and forth and inspect the geometry a bit. What if you could define a series of section cuts that are offset from one another by some user input value, .100", .200", etc... and then see a resulting section set. A user could tab key through the section set to jump to the next section cut. Perhaps an exploded section set could also be created so that you could see the progression of the section cuts all at once. If you have ever seen the Body Worlds exhibit -they did exactly this with human bodies. I thought it was a good way to see more information at one time....
http://www.montrealgazette.com/sliced+body+cross+section+display+many+real+body+figures+that+make+Body+Worlds+Cycle+life+show+Telus+World+Science+Edmonton+Thursday+2013/8397464/story.html
http://bodyworldspictures.blogspot.com/
I haven't seen CAD tools with this section like functionality, but if Onshape has the horsepower we think it does, then why not create whole section sets. A new term.... Exploded Section Sets.
Glad to help!
Regarding section views in SolidWorks, my main criticism is that the capped faces are not distinct enough. With 'Keep cap color' unchecked, the caps are shaded exactly the same as geometry that isn't cut: they do not stand out. With 'Keep cap color' checked, the capped faces clearly stand out, but then the distinction between bodies/parts vanishes.
For me, Spaceclaim is the benchmark for how section views should look and behave.
What's nice about the SC implementation, as a visual representation tool:
- faded shading of geometry behind section plane
- optionally, full model visible in ghosted shading (on both sides of section plane)
- automatic line font for section 'edges': thick, dark and same hue as the sectioned part. Nice!
- auto-hatching of adjacent parts. Nice!
All of these points make SC section views very attractive for use in presentations.I agree with spaceclaim's x-section looking nice.
show cap:
no cap:
Doesn't work in my SW, maybe I need a service pack or something?
I agree that the cap color is not distinct enough and probably why long ago I kept cap color on instead of unchecking it. I like the visibility of SC also - the hatching adds one more level of "distinctness" and visual cue that it is, in fact, a cross section. Curious, does SC change the hatch angle automatically with adjacent part - that would be really cool!
Mark
"Curious, does SC change the hatch angle automatically with adjacent part - that would be really cool!"
Yes, SC automatically spaces out and rotates the hatches for adjacent parts.
Here are some screenshots from DesignSpark Mechanical (which is essentially a free version of SC...).
Now, another thing that's really nice about SC x-sections is that you can directly select/manipulate edges and vertices of the section faces (for pulling faces, blending corners...).
Maybe section views in Onshape should automatically infer 'Intersection relations' of the model with the section plane. This is another frustration of me with SW: when sketching in section mode, you cannot directly constrain to 'section edges'. I end up creating a lot of 'Intersection curves'. My workflow would improve a lot if Onshape would automatically infer intersection constraints when I dimension/constrain a sketch element to a section edge.
Dries
One more question: You mention measuring in section views and using them for presentations, do you also model, insert parts or assembly mates whilst in section views too?
*presentations (screenshots). If more visual fidelity is required, I usually 'hard section' a part/assembly by doing a cut extrude and exporting to KeyShot. This is something I do a lot.
*measuring/control
*modeling: sketching and feature definition
*mating in assemblies
With regard to exporting section views:
It would be cool if exportable sections would not require a cut feature. Simply create a section view > OS creates the section caps > export the model with section view active > model gets exported 'as sectioned' (with cap face separation).
Dries
Evaluating a single part with multiple holes and/or internal features is nigh impossible.
Beneath are some screenshots of the part in question.
The design is a relatively simple cold forged connection with multiple connecting holes. Hard to explain to the visual-spatially disabled.
My best attempt so far has been to select internal faces, whose contours highlight through the model.
Dries
My own major gripe with the section view in SW is the setup. Since most of what I design are cylindrical pressure vessels with lots of internal components, being able to rotate the section view about an axis is pretty critical to my design process, but the X and Y rotation boxes in SW don't match the part/assembly coordinate system. Just matching that rotation input to the coordinate system would make a huge difference, and it would be even better if there was an arrow in the window to manually drag the rotation, like there is for translation.
Additionally, what are everyone's thoughts on basing section views on internal components? This is something I use occasionally to view objects offset from a central axis, but I'm not sure what a better workflow solution would be besides digging through the feature tree to find the component you're looking for and selecting a plane from there. Would something like mousing over a component while in section view and seeing options for all of the available planes be useful? I can also see how it would get very cluttered in larger assemblies, so maybe another solution would work better. Thoughts?
Hatching on the section would work for me, then you instantly know you have a section. Section cut the same colour as the part would just look like a cut, the hatch and also the single colour section cut gives an instant cue, if coming back to a part left in section view.
It would be nice to be able to snap to quadrants on circles, this would be good for checking clearance on round parts and holes clearance. Eg. "snap to quadrant on a bolt in a hole as dragging the section, then do a measure on the sections face to check hole/bolt clearances". I use this method in SW if parts on the origin, as you know the section is at 0,0 but if you can not guarantee the section is at the centre of the hole (round parts) you would get a distorted measurement on the face.
Twitter: @onshapetricks & @babart1977
Let me explain by providing an example...
Here's a simple flow block part.
This part has several holes in it, defined by extrudes.
As shown in this 'section split'.
Now, each hole and the base block is defined by sketch dimensions and extrusion distances.
It would be really nice if the section view showed all dimensions (sketch and feature level) that define the holes and base geometry. It would be even better if I could change those dimensions interactively and see those changes update in the section view. (Would it make sense to only show dimensions of hole features that are sectioned through their centers?)
It would be even more awesome if I could put 'sensors' (like in SW) on critical (thin) areas, driven diameters, modeled clearances etc.
Dries
I think sensors would be really nice for a lot of reasons.
This is the first stage in the section view roadmap, its a graphical section only; no edges (yet) and cap is not selectable. Comments welcomed.
Great start!
I see there are control handles to offset and rotate the section plane. It would be cool to have numerical controls for offset distance and angle.
Hatching looks great!
I really like that Onshape cuts away the part of the model that is facing the user!
I hope edges and measurement capability will follow soon...
Dries
BTW, did you notice the red colored sections where there is interference?
"BTW, did you notice the red colored sections where there is interference?"
No, I didn't see them... Awesome!
Dries
Heres some thing you could improve on.
I found the the inferences don't work in the assembly for my parts but have extensively tried this.
The handle movement needs a dimensional input for accurate positioning on rotation as well as the drag, I found I wanted an accurate 90deg rotation.
Does the Ball on the handle do anything? It selects nicely, I tried using it to snap to faces and points but could not get it to work. Ball snap would be nice.
If you drag outside the model no visual indiction that you are in a section, this may not be an issue, you will find the section if you build a part cutting through it.
It would be nice if the section tool had it's own icon. Maybe it could stay in the dropdown until used, then have an icon to "turn section view off" come out below the views icon when in use or just its own icon.
Thats my thoughts.
Bruce
Twitter: @onshapetricks & @babart1977