Virtual sharps

mikael_nylund

Hi. One feature that is very helpful when setting out dimensions  on a drawings where there's many angles and fillets. 

3dcad

Hi Mikael,

you can create an improvement request up for public voting. If it gets many votes it will get higher priority in development and you will be noted when this feature is implemented. 

andrew_troup

I have a feeling that the user-generated Improvement Request paradigm which has proved so successful for improving the modeller is rather less suitable for a drawing module. In fact I'm not sure it's at all suitable.

It would work perfectly well for allocating major, bolt-on functionality like GD&T, but I think it that to flood it with essential detail (like virtual sharps)  would bring it to its knees.

It's already an open question whether drawing IRs should be jumbled into the modeller list; it's getting increasingly hard for even dedicated users to keep track of what has and what has not been requested.

It seems to me there are literally hundreds of "essential detail" items like virtual sharps, and when I think back to (say) Solidworks 2003, it had about 97% of them. Whereas it seems to me Onshape Drawings has maybe a tenth of them.

How many of them are needed to be able to produce industry-quality drawings? All of them, pretty much. So I don't think it is helpful to expect the user to provide guidance as to what order to code them in: that's a development management issue.

Unlike modelling, which involves literal depictions of reality (and where past a certain stage of software development, an ingenious user can generally come up with some sort of 'near enough' workaround for missing functionality), drawings are a highly symbolic language.

Wherever symbols are substituted for literal depictions of reality, ambiguity becomes a major challenge (as any bored schoolboy can confirm: "what is the poet trying to tell us here, Mr Troup?" and the unspoken reply "How the .... do you expect me to know that?")

... and historically, ambiguity in drawings was resolved by skilled use of a simple tool (pencil or pen), at the disposal of a complex intelligence, employed to add drawing elements limited only by imagination and convention.

Virtual sharps are just one indispensable element for eliminating ambiguity.

andrew_troup

Note to Onshape: It would be good to see this thread refiled under "Drawings", I reckon

mikael_nylund

2D drawings is still needed in production of parts, or else we are  just modeling fancy models that no one can use. For example in marine world lots of parts is still handmade.

joris_kofman

mikael_nylund said:

2D drawings is still needed in production of parts, or else we are  just modeling fancy models that no one can use. For example in marine world lots of parts is still handmade.

 i don't think anybody disagrees that 2d drawings are an essential part of the CAD world. I think what @andrew_troup means is that maybe we need a separate forum for suggesting improvements to the drawing module. I think it was not a comment on your suggestion, which I think we all agree is needed.

mikael_nylund

I can buy that, I am a little lost in this forum yet "still learning" where to  write stuff.

StefanR

Has there been any development on virtual sharps for drawings? Sketches already has the functionality https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/sketch-tools-fillet.htm

PeteYodis

@StefanR We don't give timelines on features in development.  It's not too far away, though.  We know it's important for many users of drawings

henry_feldman

For us clueless folks, what exactly is a virtual sharp and why do you want them?

3dcad

henry_feldman said:

For us clueless folks, what exactly is a virtual sharp and why do you want them?

NeilCooke

Useful for a manual CNC programmer, impossible to inspect!

henry_feldman

3dcad said:

henry_feldman said:

For us clueless folks, what exactly is a virtual sharp and why do you want them?

Ah! didn't know that had a name... thanks.

PeteYodis

@henry_feldman

Sometimes these are also referred to as Theoretical Sharp Corners as well.  As Neil mentioned they can be nice for someone programming the tool path (although not absolutely necessary in a lot of cases), but for inspection with calipers on the shop floor... not gonna happen.  With modern CMM equipment if you take enough hits on the surfaces, CMM software can determine where intersecting surfaces meet (they are surfaces on a real physical part and not lines on a drawing).  It generally slows down the inspection process, although it is technically possible.  Usually there is a better way to qualify geometry, but sometimes this might be the only way.  A drawing usually needs to consider the needs for the design, the needs for the person making it, and also the needs for someone inspecting it.  Placing the dimensions to virtual sharps as reference dimensions would be nice for manufacturing and also not require inspection to qualify these reference dimensions... a nice mix.