New feature to share: Composite selected

monroe_weber_shirk

I created a new feature that allows selection of bodies by type for creating composites. I needed this because we have variable numbers of parts in our part studios and thus the manual selection option that comes with the built in composite tool doesn't work.

On reflection, a better solution might be if the part studio patterning features had an option for placing all of the parts in a composite. Until that feature is added by Onshape, this offers an alternative. And yes, I know that assemblies would seem to be the right place for patterning, but our design approach doesn't yet work in assemblies.
 
The user can select all bodies, all composite bodies, or all non composite bodies. In addition the user can subtract bodies from the selection. The selected bodies are highlighted so the user can quickly verify that the correct bodies are selected.

MichaelPascoe

Needed something like this earlier today. 

Feedback:
- Very smooth, nice work!
- The red debug boxes were overwhelming when compositing lots of parts.
- What about something like this for the icon? 

- The icon background is visible. I use https://vectr.com/ for my icons with 12 to 15px line widths.

monroe_weber_shirk

Thanks for the tip on where to make icons. I hadn't found a good icon editing environment. I've updated the icon and changed to debug color to GREEN. I think the user needs some feedback on which objects are selected.

MichaelPascoe

Legit! And sweet new logo!

monroe_weber_shirk

Just discovered that the debug statement eats up a lot of time (13 ms) even when the user doesn't have the dialog box open. That seems like a bug to me.

MichaelPascoe

It's much faster now.

monroe_weber_shirk

Emily Wood has added the ability to select parts created by a feature as another intuitive method to group parts. This gets around the fact that the patterning features don't have the ability to make composites.

MichaelPascoe

Using this again today.

For anyone who has not tried this, this feature allows you automatically select parts, even if you don't know what those parts are yet:

• Automatically selecting new patterned parts.
• Compositing your entire studio, even if new parts are added.
• Composite parts while excluding selected parts. Using this, you can chain your selections so that everything is always sorted.

Thanks again @monroe_weber_shirk, this feature is a life saver.

Boolean subtracting middle stiles from middle rails. Parts were auto composited so I never have to manually select new rails and stiles: