How can I copy a part from a public document to my own document?

tapirath

Sounds very easy but couldn't figure it out yet. I keep exporting to STEP and re-import. Is there an easier way?

shawn_crocker

Open the document and part studio of the shared document. Copy the link displayed in your browser. When you are in your assembly that you want to add the part into, select the insert button. Paste the link you copied into the search box of that dialog. You should see the public part studio and can drop in any parts you want. You don't have to copy public docs to use them in your own docs. The advantage being, if the owner changes there part, you get the option to update your reference to follow along with them.  If you want to make your own changes, you can "make copy" which is an option at the top of the screen when viewing the public doc. A better way I have found when a move forward type of edit is desired is the following. After inserting the public part into your assembly, create a part studio in context. Use the translate feature and select the option "copy in place" select the part from the ghosted geometry. Now you have the same part but owned by you and ready for editing. The advantage here is that you get the best of both scenarios. Your part remains linked back to the original part and you can make changes on-top of that link. If the original owner makes changes, you can update your assembly reference and then navigate to your part and update the incontext reference.

eric_pesty

If you just want to use it without making changes you don't need to copy, you can just insert it into an assembly. A quick way to find it is to go to "recently opened" in the insert dialogue and usually you would have been just looking at the part you want so it should be near the top and you can just insert it directly!

If you want to bring in the solid part and make changes to it you can also "derive in" into a new part studio (simpler than creating a context or than importing a STEP). Useful tip: if you do end up using "neutral" file formats, use the ".X_T" option as it is the "native" format and is less likely to have translation errors when importing.

If you want to have access to the whole feature tree, you can make a copy of the document and move the entire part studio tab to your document (but obviously it's not linked anymore...)

tapirath

I'm still not following. Just to make it easier I've made a test document: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/142fd455180953522703a6a9/w/43929468a5c33203ffe756f0/e/cd756d7b26af5d18d029bc08
Inside the part studio here there is 3 parts: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. What I want to do is to, for example, copy part 3 and make changes on it wihtout creating a new assembly or copying to whole document (as sometimes I just need a small part inside a 3000 part assembly or part studio). It's like a duplicate function.

The "derive in" thing seems like what I'm looking for but I can't figure out how to do it.

eric_pesty

Derive is a feature in the part studio:



Note that the document you want to derive from must have a version, I would have derived in part 3 from your example document in this new test but I can't because you didn't create a version.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/a6ff1b4d0f490132e9a3b79d/w/d12a060fcc2dcd9b0a5a993f/e/8a2474bb97bda24238a1fadd?renderMode=0&uiState=6200a65fb8640438c4298cdb

tapirath

Clear!
Is there any other feature that is analog to what I'm doing currently without all the hassles?

-Export part as STEP
-Import part from STEP

eric_pesty

Not sure what "hassles" you are referring to...

Derive in get you basically the same thing as export/import just with one feature, the only other requirement being that there is a version in the source document.
But it's not best practice to export STEP from a "workspace" anyway as you couldn't go back to the source of your export if you needed to...

tapirath

The hassle is that almost no public document have any version. At least the ones I'm interested in.
What I'm looking for is a simple right click a part and "copy it to your workspace" functionality. or something analog to "save as" that would exist in any desktop application. Derive-in, although sounds OK, requires a version and does more than I need. I don't need to go back to the original file.

dirk_van_der_vaart

If you just want to copy stuff from public file's maybe this is a better place to look.
https://grabcad.com/

john_mcclary

Really i don't deal with deriving a public document, since they may not have a version, or they may still be making versions. 

If you just want it as is now. 

Just Copy thier whole document.
Now you own it. Do what you want. 
Move the part studio to your document.. 
Or link the relevant parts to your document... 
Whatever makes sense for you. 

There is no need to destroy the feature tree by export/import

tapirath

dirk_van_der_vaart said:

If you just want to copy stuff from public file's maybe this is a better place to look.
https://grabcad.com/

That wouldn't solve my problem. Nor it's relevant to my question.

john_mcclary said:

Really i don't deal with deriving a public document, since they may not have a version, or they may still be making versions. 

If you just want it as is now. 

Just Copy thier whole document.
Now you own it. Do what you want. 
Move the part studio to your document.. 
Or link the relevant parts to your document... 
Whatever makes sense for you. 

There is no need to destroy the feature tree by export/import

This is already discussed and I've consider this "hassle".

I don't know maybe I'm too spoiled with 40 year old CAD software that allows duplicating or copying solids. I don't need a feature tree. I don't need a reference to the original file. I need to copy "a solid" from one document to another one with possibly in less steps then export to STEP and import from STEP. As I already explained the documents I'm finding sometimes have thousands of parts inside. Copying the whole document is slow, requires the extra step of copying the part after copying the document to my workspace and also needs to be deleted from my workspace after use since it was only temporarily copied. I would much rather export and import than do this.

I consider this issue answered. Thank you.