Drive Variable Studio from Part Geometry

fred_burtt

Hi,

I have what will be a recurring project that tiles a wall of various sizes with formed sheetmetal parts, and may or may not have differing windows and doors.

I am creating the "tile" layout on a sketch of the wall using lines extended from the window and door edges, then subdividing the remaining spaces. 

As such, the resulting sizes vary quite a bit, and my plan is to use the dimensions of the resultant columns and rows as variables to drive the sizes of the "tiles" to match.

Is there any way to use sketch/part dimensions to drive a variable studio table?

Evan_Reese

Measure Value custom feature.

SethF

@Evan is that able to write variables in a variable studio? If so a) I'll be super hype about it, and b) I wasn't able to figure it out how to use it for that. 

@fred_burtt the feature Evan linked to can be used to drive variables in part studios, and there are other features out there that import variables from other part studios. I don't think there's a way to drive variable studios from a part studio like that, but you can achieve similar (even if more clunky) functionality.

RyanWiebe

A “driven” Global Variable would be sweet to have!

Evan_Reese

Ah, I read too quickly. I don't think you can add variables to a variable studio from a part studio.

fred_burtt

@Evan_Reese:  I am using Measure Value to extract the dimensions I need to variables, but they are confined to that part studio.

I need to export them to a Variable Studio so that they can be applied globally.

@SethF:  It sounds like the features to import variables might be the ticket for me, which have you used?

A clean solution to this would be very useful, since it would allow the use of a varying master sketch to drive any number of part studios.

S1mon

Keep in mind that you can derive a sketch or part into other part studios. This can be a good way to drive top-down design.

fred_burtt

@S1mon:  I haven't used the Derive feature much, thanks for the heads up, I'll be putting that to work.

The std derive doesn't handle variables, but SuperDerive did the trick, is exactly what I needed.

Thanks to all of you, problem solved and I understand OnShape much better. 

john_mcclary

fred_burtt said:

@Evan_Reese:  I am using Measure Value to extract the dimensions I need to variables, but they are confined to that part studio.

I need to export them to a Variable Studio so that they can be applied globally.

@SethF:  It sounds like the features to import variables might be the ticket for me, which have you used?

A clean solution to this would be very useful, since it would allow the use of a varying master sketch to drive any number of part studios.

There is no way to write to a variable studio by any other means than hand typing it.

I've requested this feature to be added as soon as it was released. Only time will tell if it happens

SethF

@fred_burtt
Here's a relevant forum post. It references the function you can use to get all the variables from a given context. The linked FS is probably a bit overkill for what you need, but pretty fly.