workflow/method

robert_scott_jr_

Hello all.

I've modeled a kitchen island to be constructed of mostly 3/4" wood material. Many of the components such as toe kick, cabinet sides, drawer sides were sketched and then extruded each as one piece; no individual pieces for each of their faces. Later of course these continuous parts will be made up of individual components cut to length and specific angles and then assembled to create the continuous part.

I'm in the process of going back to the sketches and adding lines to allow me to extrude to individual pieces such as the front, back and sides of a drawer that will be assembled into one part. I then gather all the pieces as a composite part to use in an assembly. And now with individual pieces of a component I can create drawings for cutting and make use of the Auto Layout feature script (Thank you to marena_richardson and her team).

This is a bit tedious and made me wonder if there is a better approach. - Scotty

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/8fa3a01fb56215fd84b4e91a/w/05aad37f1bd8ff618873920c/e/bd22f623ec3530fedc6af4f0

romeograham

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/cf2ebd36a36695408b9650a9/v/6cce12a3e3d7caeba7e3f9c5/e/351d84b8f0b1cc1f5e598800

Here's a Custom FeatureScript that allows you to extrude several bodies from the same sketch - and keep them as separate bodies. It sounds like this may reduce the number of extrude features you need to use. Though, it means that you need to set up your sketches with this in mind from the beginning.

S1mon

The first order thing I could see is that there is a FeatureScript to extrude multiple parts at once each using a different face of the sketch. 

https://onshape4frc.com/blog/using-extrude-individual/
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/95c00401c440b44ad8799ef5/w/1f1ebce01a3b8eb6fa102975/e/f59ee8c28530122eb7fa9f5c

The built in frame tool has a miter option. Perhaps you could use it?
https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/frame.htm

There's also this tool which doesn't create separate parts, but perhaps it could be modified to do so:
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/15560/pattern-sweep-new-custom-feature

EvanReese

I designed a shed in Onshape that I built for my yard. Maybe there are some workflow things you could steal?

a few things worth noting:

• definitely used an Extrude Separate custom feature a lot for framing.
• I used the Beams custom feature, but would use Frames if I did it today
• I liked compositing things by category (i.e. wall, framing etc) so I could easily hide and show them. If you make composites and add those to an assembly, anything you add to the composite will automatically show up in the assembly too, which is nice.
• I used my part color feature with "invert part selection" checked to color everything, so as I added parts they'd all stay a woody color.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/e0ee2f617917a8a23f2c7998/w/f099820f3fd3c13fb801ba50/e/0a9ae6828b5fe59ed2e277cb

robert_scott_jr_

Thank You all for your help. All suggestions were helpful; I chose to use the Extrude Separate feature script but I did explore the other options and am thankful to have learned some new methods. - Scotty

MichaelPascoe

@robert_scott_jr_ Will you be modeling cabinetry often on Onshape or is this a one off project? Depending on your answer, there are different workflows that may suit your needs better for a daily workflow than a one off project.

EvanReese

@robert_scott_jr_
Michael definitely knows his stuff for modeling cabinets in Onshape better than anyone else I'm aware of.

robert_scott_jr_

Michael. Nearly al of my projects are within the realm of a homeowner (i.e. plumber, electrician, carpenter, etc.), an electronics hobbyist, and someone that likes to fix and make stuff. This cabinet type of modeling is infrequent. I sure am glad to have Onshape and it's community enabling me to fulfill this and my other goals. It's quite satisfying to be able to model something in 3D and have it come to a tangible fruition. - Thanks to all.

MichaelPascoe

Evan is too kind.

Glad to hear that Robert.

Something I learned later on which I use all the time now are configurations. Configured parts can be derived to new studios and re-used. Cabinets are the perfect example of this. There is so much more to configurations than what it first seems, here are the courses: Learning Center Configurations.

With a few custom features, different workflows can be much more efficient: 

• Measure value by @konstantin_shiriazdanov
• Point derive by @Alex_Kempen