Planes Don't Show Adjusted Size on iOS

S1mon

I resized the default planes in a (small) model. They stay the correct size on the desktop browser, but on iOS they are back to their 150 x 150 mm size. This makes it very hard to use. 

Interestingly, if I have the document open on iOS and I hit the reload button on the browser, I see a brief flash of the larger plane size, and then it switches to the size that I adjusted. If I quit out of the iOS session, then reloading on the browser doesn't show this flash of unadjusted plane size.

This seems like a bug to me. It also points to the issue that we still don't have autosizing of planes (improvement request from 2016). In my ideal version of autosizing, it would default to "on demand", maybe a right click menu item, only when selecting planes (i.e. I hit autosize and the system looks at the bounding box of the currently showing parts/surfaces/sketches/curves and adjusts the selected planes accordingly). There could also be an option to autosize always (on rebuild) for people who use a lot of models which change size all the time (configurations come to mind).

steve_shubin

S1mon said:

I resized the default planes … on iOS they are back to their 150 x 150 mm size. This makes it very hard to use. 

Interesting how you say that

At one time, I thought it was important to have adjustable size planes on my iPhone.

I have one of the larger size iPhones. But In using it, you’re still dealing with a small screen. As such, I find it best to hide as many planes as workable at any given time.

When zoomed in, I want to limit the view of planes, as It could keep down the chance of inadvertently or accidentally selecting one

Hiding planes also keeps me from looking through what looks like a blue filter with a slight opaqueness to it.

Now of course, I understand the need for planes. But if I can work without them at any given time, that is, if I can hide them, then that’s what I will do

A lot of times I start with one of the default planes. But as a model develops, I tend to use either mate connectors, or I sketch on the side of an object. So as the model progresses, I’m just not using ‘planes’ as much.

There are times I do make custom planes, one reason being, we don’t have implicit mate connectors in the sketch dialog. But as soon as I can, I will often hide that plane.

As for having a real small plane with a relatively big model, we’ll I find it best to select my planes from the feature list. By using the feature list, I avoid having to zoom in to click on a plane. And, I know exactly what I’m selecting

On the other hand, having a real small part on a big plane, well I have to turn that plane off to use zoom to fit, where I can get that part to fill a fair portion of the screen.

As far as auto adjustable planes on this small format screen, yeah that would be fine. But I would probably still end up hiding those planes as soon as possible, and working in the manner that I’ve become accustomed to, where my selection of a plane, is done from the list often or at times in a busier view

Eliminating (hiding) clutter, that is, hiding the square or rectangle that indicates a plane, and whatever other extraneous vector info there is at the time, such as sketches — well, that is what is more important to me, when working in a more confined viewing portal such as an iPhone.. In fact, I often work with the plane hidden but selected, as for direction within a feature, or as for a plane to build a sketch on

I have a method of working, where the less that is displayed, is often better. Kind of analogous with the principle of not letting your sketches get too cluttered

I don’t end up using planes for my bearings so much — that is, with regards to gathering where I am and/or how I am oriented in the environment. To get my bearings, I use Trimetric or some other selected view.

So, auto sized planes would be nice. But just not a real big priority for me at this time

But one thing that would be more useful to me is, implicit mates. I wish they’d bring that to my iPhone

As an aside, but along the lines of eliminating clutter and bringing definition and clarity to the workspace, I find that using HIDDEN EDGES REMOVED, will at times, help you to better see what segments, what lines, what edges, ARE SELECTED, better than when using Shaded, or Translucent.

S1mon

It's definitely good to hear how other people are using Onshape. I'm learning on my own, so I don't see how other experienced people do things. I'm also coming from 30+ years of Pro/E and Solidworks. I'm spending a lot of time in Onshape figuring out workflows that give me the flexibility and robustness that I've come to expect in other tools - when used carefully. 

For iOS, I've only tried to do real work on my iPad. My iPhone is just too small for me to do much more than viewing, but I do see videos where some people fly through modeling on an iPhone.

On iOS, unless you have a keyboard hooked up, there's no 'P' or Shift-'P' to quickly hide planes (and other stuff). Am I missing something?

In Solidworks I try to use as few planes as possible, and a lot of extrude to/from vertex. I still end up with a certain amount of planes. I can see that there's more opportunity to successfully just use faces of objects in Onshape, but I've spent so many years learning how to make really robust models that don't break when you add a round or chamfer to something. For me that requires a certain amount of imaginary references that don't change.

I'm also a very visual person. I worked on a complex medical device recently (in Solidworks) where the lead engineer used a ton of planes and infinite axes. He left them individually visible, but mostly turned off visibility of the categories (planes, axes, sketches). He referenced them by searching for names. It was challenging for me not to go crazy. I'm used to keeping useful reference geometry in the Solidworks "Favorites" folder, so they're easy to turn on and off. I also like all the reference geometry to not extend off into space because "zoom to fit" is useless if the planes (or sketches or whatever) are much bigger than the part you're working on.

The "hidden edges removed" comment is interesting. I'm noticing that some of the not-shaded views are more useful in Onshape than was my experience in other tools.

steve_shubin

S1mon said:

On iOS, unless you have a keyboard hooked up, there's no 'P' or Shift-'P' to quickly hide planes (and other stuff). Am I missing something?

steve_shubin

@S1mon

The actual time it took to hide all planes in the above video was five seconds

So not as fast as a keyboard shortcut. But more than acceptable as far as I’m concerned