Improvements to Onshape - June 3rd, 2020

NeilCooke

I can imagine that one or two of you will be pleased with this latest update which includes the most requested and voted for feature in the history of Onshape. Enjoy!

CAD IMPROVEMENTS

FACE COLORS

Appearances can now be added to Solid and Surface Faces in a Part Studio. The new Appearance Panel displays all currently assigned Part and Face colors which can be edited, renamed, configured and suppressed. 

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/tqpe22byf4?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

Face colors may also be assigned programmatically with FeatureScript using the setProperty option "allowFaces":

  setProperty(context, { "entities" : faceQuery,
                         "propertyType" : PropertyType.APPEARANCE,
                         "value" : color(r,g,b,a),
                         "allowFaces" : true });

Face colors set by Custom Features do not appear in the Appearance Panel.

ISOLATE KEYBOARD SHORTCUT

Parts in Part Studios and Instances in Assemblies can now be quickly shown in Isolate mode with a new keyboard shortcut. Hover your mouse over the required Part or Instance in the graphics area or make a selection from the Parts list or Instance list then press Shift + i.

NORMAL TO NEAREST DEFAULT PLANE

The keyboard shortcut for View Normal To (n) will now rotate the model view, when no geometry is selected or highlighted, to be normal to the nearest default Plane. Pressing n while hovering over a planar face also now works as a shortcut for viewing a model normal to a face.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/rdgthjch0l?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

FEATURESCRIPT CUSTOM TABLES

Calculation results, measurements, lists, properties and other types of data can now be easily extracted from a Part Studio and presented in tabular form using Custom Tables. For Enterprise accounts, any Table that the administrator adds will appear in all Documents for all members that have "Link" access to the Table. Documentation for Tables can be found here.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/zivyeqdiyf?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

HOLE TABLES IN PART STUDIOS

When a Hole feature is created in a Part Studio, a new tab appears on the right that details the specification, quantity and tag for every Hole.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/7v6i0s2d57?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

SHOW HIDDEN BODIES DURING EDIT

Hidden items in the Parts List such as Curves, Surfaces and Parts will now show automatically if the feature that created them is being edited.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/isis20gonc?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

DELETE FACE / DELETE PART

The Delete Face feature, with the Leave Open option selected, is now able to delete an entire Part or Surface without having to create an additional Delete Part feature. 

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/eo13aeafry?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS

Notable performance improvements that may affect your daily workflow include:

• Faster retrieval of metadata such as Part properties.
• Faster opening of Documents with Part Studios containing lots of Derived Parts.
• Faster opening of Documents containing Custom Features that reference older versions of the FeatureScript library.
  
• Faster Assembly Configuration changes requested via the API.

PROFESSIONAL IMPROVEMENTS

PENDING APPROVALS IN OTHER RELEASE CANDIDATES

A new release condition has been added to Release Management that prevents an item from entering a release workflow if its Part Number has been used in another Release Candidate. If this condition is not set, a warning will be shown in the Release Candidate dialog, but the item will be permitted to enter the workflow.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/a8rcq58omb?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

ENTERPRISE IMPROVEMENTS

INVITE USERS BY CSV FILE

Enterprise Administrators can now invite large numbers of users by importing their details from a CSV file. A sample CSV file is provided and automated error checking ensures all imported details are valid and correct. 

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/yfn5fc3mad?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

SAVE DASHBOARD FAVORITES

Onshape Enterprise's Reports and Analytics can now be saved, along with any filters, for quick retrieval later. All saved dashboards are listed in the My Analytics filter and can be accessed by any user with permissions.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/x6i5kx6sh2?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

LEARNING CENTER IMPROVEMENTS

NAVIGATING ONSHAPE FOR NEW USERS

A new technical briefing has been added to the Learning Center to help users unfamiliar with Onshape to navigate a Document they have been shared into: Navigating Onshape for New Users. No sign in or Onshape account is required to access this technical briefing, so please feel free to share with everybody!

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.

AaronS

First

Theo_R

Wow a lot of great stuff here.
Colored faces! Featurescript Tables and Hole Tables... nice.
Also appreciate the New User content AND Analytics.

emagdalenaC2i

Great improvements!!!
Thanks, I will test soon the FS custom tables

emagdalenaC2i

And thank you very much for this "improvement":

• Removed option to create Part Studio drawings from context menu

EvanReese

wow! this release is huge! Seems like everyone must be settled into the new location at PTC now.

Face colors is going to be super helpful for use in Keyshot for me.

"n" to view normal to the closest cardinal plane is a bit of muscle memory I never lost switching from Solidworks 4+ years ago, so that's very welcome. Now when I hit "n" out of habit something will actually happen.

The custom tables seem very important too. Now I can probably phase out the Find Sharp Edges custom feature in favor of this.

Thanks! 👏👏👏

billy2

amazing job!

brucebartlett

Soooooooooo much more colorful Neil! You've made my day with this much overdue feature.  

NeilCooke

brucebartlett said:

Soooooooooo much more colorful Neil! You've made my day with this much overdue feature.  

The label example was created just for you, Bruce 

Josiah_Harthcock

Great job guys!! 

bill_daniels

Color Face!  Stupendous, spectacular!  Now, how do I make the 'appearances' panel go away after I've used it?

brucebartlett

NeilCooke said:

brucebartlett said:

Soooooooooo much more colorful Neil! You've made my day with this much overdue feature.  

The label example was created just for you, Bruce 

Thank you, I'll make use of that today

EricGauthier

Just... WOW!!!!!

Cache_River_Mill

This is an impressive update. Thank you!

We will be using these right away.

HuguesLessardWRI

So much great stuff in this update. Now I need to figure out how to use that to improve our usage of Onshape.

NeilCooke

bill_daniels said:

Color Face!  Stupendous, spectacular!  Now, how do I make the 'appearances' panel go away after I've used it?

Click on the little tab icon that you used to open it.

chadstoltzfus

One of my favorite updates yet! FeatureScript tables, colored faces, saving dashboards! I have quite the backlog of scripting and administration now.

john_mcclary

Finally colored faces! Wait... now what are we gonna complain about... 

There is so much here, are you sure you are going to have something 3 weeks from now 

Very nice work all!

having trouble making a table though... what am I missing?
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/ae128fca39a1d825a3c5d427/w/3e80cca7399c99b775520d11/e/3068316aed3ce312a6d15462

Jolly

Looks great! This is a big release. Happy to use the new 'n' updates and face colors. The custom tables and hole tables are fantastic too.  Will certainly use.

NeilCooke

john_mcclary said:

having trouble making a table though... what am I missing?

You need to return the table:

return table("BOM", columns, rows);

john_mcclary

OMG, that did it... lol I paused the video one second too soon 

jakeramsley

john_mcclary said:

Finally colored faces! Wait... now what are we gonna complain about... 

There is so much here, are you sure you are going to have something 3 weeks from now 

Very nice work all!

having trouble making a table though... what am I missing?
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/ae128fca39a1d825a3c5d427/w/3e80cca7399c99b775520d11/e/3068316aed3ce312a6d15462

Hi john_mcclary,

We are working on uploading some custom table samples right now which should help give an example of how the internals for tables work.  They will be seen in the Custom table samples tag

antero_nick

Great improvements!

Question: looks like custom tables only work in part studios and not assemblies?  Unless I am missing it.
Still looking for a way to get mass properties of components out at the assembly level.  Step in the right direction but does not quite solve that use case yet.

jakeramsley

antero_nick said:

Great improvements!

Question: looks like custom tables only work in part studios and not assemblies?  Unless I am missing it.
Still looking for a way to get mass properties of components out at the assembly level.  Step in the right direction but does not quite solve that use case yet.

This is correct.  Currently they are for Part Studios.

john_mcclary

@jakeramsley
I saw that option, but the BOM search was coming up blank, so I gave it a go myself. It works fine now

It is unfortunate you can't have these tables for Assembly (yet?) then we could use them in drawings.
Good for a reporting tool, saves me from creating an assembly so I can read my custom properties that don't show up in the properties dialogue.

john_mcclary

antero_nick said:

Great improvements!

Question: looks like custom tables only work in part studios and not assemblies?  Unless I am missing it.
Still looking for a way to get mass properties of components out at the assembly level.  Step in the right direction but does not quite solve that use case yet.

if you have a property (custom property in my case) then you can read from that:

var matl = getProperty(context, {
                    "entity" : part,
                    "propertyType" : PropertyType.MATERIAL
            }).name;
            
            var weight = getProperty(context, {
                    "entity" : part,
                    "propertyType" : PropertyType.CUSTOM,
                    "customPropertyId" : "5aad94f7b499a40f400c058f" // the ID of your mass property
            });

Or you can set any value to the table
so weight doesn't "need" to read a property, so for example:

weight = 123;

will always set the value of "weight" on each column to whatever you have here

so you should be able to evaluate the mass  of each part in the loop
Something like:

var weight = evApproximateMassProperties(context, {
                    "entities" : Part,
                    "density" : Density * kilogram / meter ^ 3
                });

roryaronson

YES! Thank you sooo much for finally making it possible to color individual faces. This will allow me to (easily) make my CAD models look more realistic, AND allow me to no longer need so many individual parts and assemblies as the hack for when I absolutely needed different colors before. So excited. I feel like Onshape is now fully on-par with SolidWorks for my needs. Thanks!!

romeograham

Has anyone figured out how to apply an image as a label?

[EDIT] I see now - the label is created by splitting the face, then applying color to each face. Not applying an image (yet).

guy_rogel

Well done. all looks good. 

Matt_Bancroft

The appearance update is excellent, especially the ability to configure. Clever stuff.
Also impressed with the document for new users. A very useful resource!

BMcGaffey

Amazing stuff. Being able to browse the hole table in the part studio is going to be the biggest one for us. 
Great to see such a massive 'bedrock' improvement!