Rotate and Translate within one Transform Operation

andrew_roley

It would be nice to reduce operations and features required to position a part; it seems there isn't any interfering activity between the two (only decision would be whether rotation or translation would occur first, with a checkbox to choose being even better).

MBartlett21

@andrew_roley

You can use the transform by mate connectors which allows a lot more freedom than rotate or translate

tony_459

Transform by mate connectors is your best friend :-D

Specifying rotation and translation in a single transform would raise the question of which is done first---would the translation be done along the original axes or along the rotated axes?

This would be a definite tripping point, I think. In other modeling environments, I still struggle which comes first. I always forget. And it's documented, and I always go "ah, that's the order," but it never seems to stick.

In fact, I couldn't tell you now what that order is. I don't remember. So even though I can specify both in a single transform, to avoid confusion I always specify rotation and translation separately, just to avoid trouble.

I imagine other people would have trouble remembering, even if it was something they routinely used, and even if it was clearly documented...

That said, yeah, fewer operations is better... And maybe, even though people would forget, it would make sense for Onshape to let users specify rotation and translation in one go :-D

steve_shubin

@andrew_roley

Multi Mate Connector

You could locate the connector for your part anywhere in 3D space and orient it at any angle, in one FeatureScript

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/961062e23f34b30aadaa595c/w/353e111348fc9d08f61fd036/e/e803c0f62a2ac145f8e2995a

andrew_roley

MBartlett21 said:

@andrew_roley

You can use the transform by mate connectors which allows a lot more freedom than rotate or translate

tony_459 said:

Transform by mate connectors is your best friend :-D

Thanks for the suggestion; In the case where the desired endpoint of the object was one planar/smart mate point to another, this would work quite well. For any other occurrence, there would be many more clicks and at least two features to get the mate connector where you wanted on each end and finally do the transform.

tony_459 said:

Specifying rotation and translation in a single transform would raise the question of which is done first---would the translation be done along the original axes or along the rotated axes?

This would be a definite tripping point, I think. In other modeling environments, I still struggle which comes first. I always forget. And it's documented, and I always go "ah, that's the order," but it never seems to stick.

In fact, I couldn't tell you now what that order is. I don't remember. So even though I can specify both in a single transform, to avoid confusion I always specify rotation and translation separately, just to avoid trouble.

I imagine other people would have trouble remembering, even if it was something they routinely used, and even if it was clearly documented...

I agree the order of operations could slow down the feature flow; hence why I suggested the check box option to switch between the two. That way you don't have to go searching docs or have to struggle with it doing the opposite of what you wanted. Worst case, you click the check box to change to the desired operation order.

steve_shubin said:

@andrew_roley

Multi Mate Connector

You could locate the connector for your part anywhere in 3D space and orient it at any angle, in one FeatureScript

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/961062e23f34b30aadaa595c/w/353e111348fc9d08f61fd036/e/e803c0f62a2ac145f8e2995a

Thanks for sharing! This essentially turns the manual process of mate connector positioning into a much easier flow, which can then make transform by mate connectors much easier. 

It would still be great if the Transform feature incorporated this itself, as except for ideal scenarios, you would still be having to go through multiple features and many clicks.

romeograham

You can create Mate Connectors on-the-fly inside the Transform operation:

Here, the "from" MC and the "to" MC were created on the fly. You can also edit each MC after they are created by clicking the little MC icon in the selection box:

You have a lot of control with the position of the "to" (and "from") MC inside this tool.

billy2

@andrew_troup do what @romeograham suggests to perform one transformation.

rotations and translations don't get along and can't be mixed. Rotations are procedural meaning the order matters. Rotx, Roty & Rotz does not equal Rotz, Roty & Rotx. Translations don't matter and can be performed in any order.

I think of it like a party of translations and it only takes one rot to ruin the party. What comes before and after the rot really matters.

steve_shubin

@andrew_roley

What @romeograham says is true. It’s easy to create connector mates on the fly in the desktop version of Onshape

But if you still have the desire to limit the amount of features in a feature list, then watch this GIF

andrew_roley

romeograham said:

You can also edit each MC after they are created by clicking the little MC icon in the selection box:

This feature 

This tip is huge! I had no idea you could edit the mate connectors inside the transform (and I'm guessing other features) workflow. This should be in the documentation!

billy2 said:

@andrew_troup do what @romeograham suggests to perform one transformation.

rotations and translations don't get along and can't be mixed. Rotations are procedural meaning the order matters. Rotx, Roty & Rotz does not equal Rotz, Roty & Rotx. Translations don't matter and can be performed in any order.

I think of it like a party of translations and it only takes one rot to ruin the party. What comes before and after the rot really matters.

I'm aware of the procedural order of rotating in euler angles. I don't quite agree that rotations and translations "can't be mixed". Please refer to the homogeneous transformation matrix. Here is a helpful video describing it.

steve_shubin said:

But if you still have the desire to limit the amount of features in a feature list, then watch this GIF

I do appreciate the work that went into multi-mate connector; it is a very powerful tool. However, just for this one mate, it would take about 19 clicks and 10 keystrokes give or take, to accomplish, plus the clicks and keystrokes for the actual transform and other mate connector.

The desire isn't just low feature count, although that has benefits in itself for keeping track of things. What I'm requesting is essentially to make the freeform translate tool that exists in assemblies work in part studios as well. We can transform parts wherever we want them without a bunch of tedious workarounds and feature script implementation in assemblies. Why not part studios? 

Yes, the operations become complex when adding multiple changes on top of one another, but I think the user should be given the power to decide between a reproducible list of # features of low complexity and high involvement vs a single feature with high complexity and low involvement.