Improvements to Onshape - August 20th, 2021

Daniel_Kane

We’re celebrating August with another great Onshape release! This update features a highly requested improvement to assemblies, along with many other improvements across the platform. Let's jump in.

GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS

ITALIAN LOCALIZATION

The User Interface can now be displayed in Italian. Go to “My Account > Preferences > Display Language” to change languages for individual users.

ABILITY TO FILTER FEATURE LIST FOR ERRORS

The filter capabilities in Onshape Part Studios have been extended with this release. It is now easy to find any features with errors or warnings by using the “:errors” filter.

CAD IMPROVEMENTS

PARAMETRIC REPLICATE TOOL IN ASSEMBLIES

Until now, the Replicate command in assemblies would repeat entities and mates onto matching geometry in a one-time manner. This made it difficult to visualize which components were associated with Replicate, and didn’t allow for modification of the Replicate parameters after the fact. With this release, Replicate will now behave as a parametric entity much like assembly patterns.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/kyo9ofelms

APPLY LIMITS TO BALL MATE ROTATION IN ASSEMBLIES

With this latest update, you can now add rotational limits to ball mates in assemblies. The limit is defined as the maximum angle created between the Z-axes of the two mate connectors, defining a cone of rotation for your ball joint.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/h3rl08a1gy 

ABILITY TO FLIP ORIENTATION OF SHEET METAL FLAT PATTERN

With this release, Onshape now gives you the ability to determine the up-direction of your sheet metal flat patterns. This allows for increased control over appearance and bend notes in drawings.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/qev7jcj7r9

SUPPORT FOR PVZ EXPORT

With this update, Onshape now supports the export of parts and assemblies to the PVZ format. This capability makes it easy to exchange data with a range of other PTC applications.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/62s5aun1h1

SPLIT CURVE OPERATION

With this release, the Split command has been improved to now be able to split curve components. This can be particularly useful for working with a portion of a projected curve.

SELECT CONICAL SURFACE FOR SECTION VIEW

The Section View tool can now accept conical faces as its input. It will automatically bring the section plane to the center of the conical surface. This is particularly useful when working with drafted components and screw bosses.

DRAWING IMPROVEMENTS

PROFILE VIEWS OF TOROIDAL EDGES NOW SEEN AS ARCS

When creating drawings of springs and other toroidal components, Onshape’s drawings will now see the profile view as an arc, allowing for radial dimensions to be applied. This makes it simple to call out the inner and outer radii of springs.

IMPROVED CONTEXT MENUS FOR DRAWING VIEWS

In this latest release, we have improved the context menus for drawing views. You will find the options are now grouped logically by functionality and include sub-menus to prevent the dialog from getting too long.

ENTERPRISE IMPROVEMENTS

ANALYTICS REPORTING FOR FAILED SIGN-IN ATTEMPTS

This update includes additional security and IP visibility within Onshape Enterprise. Now, any failed sign-in attempt, classified as the correct email with the incorrect password, will be tracked and reported within Enterprise Analytics.

MOBILE IMPROVEMENTS

IOS READ-ONLY FEATURE DIALOGS

iOS users with View and Copy permissions can now open feature dialogs to interrogate feature inputs.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/opnllvfeem

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 Onshape Documents and over the next few days these features will also be available in Documents created before the date of this update.

john_mcclary

This is beautiful, even on small sub assemblies replicate makes a big difference in assembly time (My time spent mating), performance, and tree organization.

Jop_Timmers

Feels like Christmas! Thanks Onshape team!

john_mcclary

I was looking in the new sub menu for hide bend lines and bend notes, looks like those are still in the main list.
Could those be moved over to the hide/show menu also?

PeteYodis

john_mcclary said:

I was looking in the new sub menu for hide bend lines and bend notes, looks like those are still in the main list.
Could those be moved over to the hide/show menu also?

I have created a ticket and filed a bug for this.  Thanks @john_mcclary

caleb_mellum

When will Reality Server be available again?

nick_papageorge073

I'm having a problem with the new replicate feature. If you mate something to the replicate, the replicate fails. For example brought in a step insulating sleeve washer from mcmaster. Replicated that in my assy, and all is good. Then I mate OS standard 10-32 screw to this washer. That makes the replicate fail. Anyone else?

john_mcclary

I love the new replicate feature, but it sounds like there is a need to dissolve or a parametric option 

StephenG

@Alex_Kempen

Never knew you could create a linear dimensional constraint to/from a plane. Thanks for the tip.

However, when the plane's visibility is suppressed the dimensional constraints looks suspect.
The constraint's dimension extension line points to nothing.

Onshape: Maybe a small plane icon should be appear at the end of the extension line to indicate it is associated with a plane feature.
  

malay_kumar

nick_papageorge073 said:

I'm having a problem with the new replicate feature. If you mate something to the replicate, the replicate fails. For example brought in a step insulating sleeve washer from mcmaster. Replicated that in my assy, and all is good. Then I mate OS standard 10-32 screw to this washer. That makes the replicate fail. Anyone else?

Replicate currently requires only one external mate to set of parts that are replicated. My guess is, in your case washer end up having multiple mates. If you need bolt to be replicated as well then you should edit replicate and add bolt. If that doesn't work then you probably still have unsupported mates but pl open a ticket and we can look into it.

We will look into supporting multiple mate case in future. 

malay_kumar

john_mcclary said:

I love the new replicate feature, but it sounds like there is a need to dissolve or a parametric option 

yes this is in plan. I am curious how often this is required though. One case that was mentioned before was if seed gets deleted or suppressed but may be there are better ways to handle that.

malay_kumar

shawn_crocker said:

The replicate update is great! turns replicate into more of a sketch driven pattern on steroids.  Sketch driven pattern has defiantly been missed by myself. 

We hope replicate to be more powerful and generic than feature driven pattern. Few benefits over driven pattern  (1) Replicate can work with imported geometry and geometry created from multiple features. (2) Replicated instances can have independent motion from each other representing real world design better when there is motion. (3) It can work with geometry created from custom feature thus giving custom instantiation logic. 

john_mcclary

malay_kumar said:

nick_papageorge073 said:

I'm having a problem with the new replicate feature. If you mate something to the replicate, the replicate fails. For example brought in a step insulating sleeve washer from mcmaster. Replicated that in my assy, and all is good. Then I mate OS standard 10-32 screw to this washer. That makes the replicate fail. Anyone else?

Replicate currently requires only one external mate to set of parts that are replicated. My guess is, in your case washer end up having multiple mates. If you need bolt to be replicated as well then you should edit replicate and add bolt. If that doesn't work then you probably still have unsupported mates but pl open a ticket and we can look into it.

We will look into supporting multiple mate case in future. 

so far my experience with replicate breaking / repairing has been surprisingly easy. BUT, What I have noticed is selecting objects to copy and paste in other assemblies is now more challenging. You need to find the seed instance of the replicate pattern, if you select a part in  the graphics view that is replicated, it won't copy to clipboard. 

is there a way to query on mouseover what  parts are part of a pattern in the graphics view, rather that the tree?
I see if you mouse over the replicate feature in the tree it highlights them in graphics view, but it does not show where the seed is. (maybe highlight this with a different color?) Right now you will have to right click / edit the replicate to see the seed.

Also, if you copy a replicated part from graphics view selection, it should recognize the part and add it to clipboard (or a series of parts)

malay_kumar

john_mcclary said:

so far my experience with replicate breaking / repairing has been surprisingly easy. BUT, What I have noticed is selecting objects to copy and paste in other assemblies is now more challenging. You need to find the seed instance of the replicate pattern, if you select a part in  the graphics view that is replicated, it won't copy to clipboard. 

is there a way to query on mouseover what  parts are part of a pattern in the graphics view, rather that the tree?
I see if you mouse over the replicate feature in the tree it highlights them in graphics view, but it does not show where the seed is. (maybe highlight this with a different color?) Right now you will have to right click / edit the replicate to see the seed.

Also, if you copy a replicated part from graphics view selection, it should recognize the part and add it to clipboard (or a series of parts)

These are all good improvements. We should be able to copy replicated instances to clipboard. We will log these and look into these in future.

Wes_Vendrig

Regarding the new parametric replication: In large assemblies I have to create groups insteads of mates. How do I go from a parametric replication 

john_mcclary

I like the ability to flip sheet metal orientation now. Unfortunately the execution is not ideal.

When you are creating your flat pattern views in drawings, you find a part that is upside down (bend direction needs to be flipped)
so you need to switch over to the model
find the sheet-metal feature
edit the feature, select flip
wait for regeneration
go back to the drawing
regenerate the drawing

then you find the mirror parts you have no control over unless you flip the parent too.

This should have simply been: Flip the view from TOP to BOTTOM (IN DRAWINGS) while maintaining the bend lines and updating bend notes automatically


I've been trying to use this feature in my last few jobs, but it is so tedious I will be ignoring this update from this point forward.
Which is sad for me, I was waiting for this one since Sheet-Metal came out. 

bruce_williams

I feel like something big is building up...

wayne_sauder

I was feeling the same thing... That or else Onshape is now going to disappoint us.   
 Not really fearful of that yet. 

john_mcclary

I didn't even realize it has been 3 weeks... 

konstantin_shiriazdanov

They have already posted a video about todays update on youtube

evan_morrison

malay_kumar said:

john_mcclary said:

I love the new replicate feature, but it sounds like there is a need to dissolve or a parametric option 

yes this is in plan. I am curious how often this is required though. One case that was mentioned before was if seed gets deleted or suppressed but may be there are better ways to handle that.

Just adding to the group asking for the old Replicate functionality to be optional, either in the Replicate tool or as its own tool ("Populate"?). The inability to add more mates to the seed component makes it difficult or impossible to use for populating lots of bearings and things where there are nearly always multiple mates involved in the stackup. Having the inability to copy the replicated instances is also frustrating. It makes the instances associated with the Replicate feature not behave like "full" instantiated parts. I understand the reason for the new feature behavior, but the "Macro" style functionality was very useful and the tool can no longer be used that way which significantly changes our typical workflow.

john_mcclary

I do wish we could choose which mate replicate patterns when a part has multiple mates.

I do love the new replicate, but the old replicate was also an important feature as it was. 

I would like there to be a checkbox (which remembers last state) that toggles the replicate pattern feature to be combined or disolved on creation.

Also the ability to disolve a replicate pattern as well would be helpful to some people i feel.