Improvements to Onshape - June 29th, 2023

Roy_Mutalik · June 2023

Welcome to our second release of June and, once again, it includes a wide variety of features: surfacing, drawings, productivity tools, usability improvements, and more. Let's take a look.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/6i/x7qbyhbsqbeb.png

GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS

DIHEDRAL ANALYSIS

A new evaluation tool for measuring the dihedral angle between two faces is now available: Dihedral analysis. Click the Show analysis tools icon at the bottom right corner of the screen to access this tool. Note that Interference detection and Curve/edge analysis tools are also accessed from here.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/pikijisssu

CREATE ISOCLINES

A new feature to create Isoclines (curves on a face) is now available. Select one or more faces, a direction of reference, and an angle. Isoclines are useful for generating silhouette curves and tangency lines for adding manual draft.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/wis4ekvz1q

CUSTOM FRAME PROFILE LIBRARIES

Users may now create and manage their own Frame profile libraries. Professional and Enterprise licenses allow companies to have a shared frame library managed by an administrator. In addition, each individual user can set up their own frame profile library folder for their own use.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/eqj3qtsq9o

All current Onshape library profiles have also been made publicly available. If you wish to entirely manage your own library and include a subset of the standard profiles as well, you may copy them from the links below

ISO:

Cold formed hollow sections:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/1828c2eb863ee177b5a1d699/w/34fdabc05c992a4a90051411/e/ac4a99673478726ffe8a2c1a
Hot rolled and structural steel:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/7f325d6f220d7f8fc87a6635/w/56e13492d6c1af38267c917b/e/57b5ea6e9fdad7bf24af08ae

ASIC:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/222d833563d2b359395e721d/w/6b9a9afcc77cf7436fd84734/e/2638efb9136a999d65aed13d

DRAWING IMPROVEMENTS

INSPECTION TABLE PANEL

Onshape Inspection items are now visible directly in the Drawings environment from a panel on the right hand side.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/0en52pyfa9

AUXILIARY VIEW: ANGULAR DIMENSION TO VIEW INDICATOR

You can now dimension directly to the arrow-style view indicator for an Auxiliary view. This is a convenient way to call out the angle of the Auxiliary view.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/i6ah8spfkr

PROJECT SECTION VIEW WITH CUT

When projecting a section view, you now have the option to include the cut in the resultant view. By default, the cut is not shown, but you can hold the SHIFT key before placing the view to enable it. It also can be turned on or off at any time from the view properties.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/x75fv7n5ew

ENTERPRISE IMPROVEMENTS

DOCUMENT DASHBOARD: PUBLICATIONS REFERRING TO DOCUMENT

The Document dashboard now includes a Publications Referring to Document field. This shows how many (and which) publications have an element from this document being referenced. You can think of this like a Where used but specifically for finding Publications.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/6f/j9xq6i7uj17n.png

IMPROVED PERFORMANCE OF TEAM ACTIVITY DASHBOARDS

Changes have been made to Enterprise reports to drastically improve the load time when drilling down into specific Team Activity dashboards. In certain instances, it is reported to load 4 to 5 times faster than before.

Please take a moment to try out these new features and improvements and leave your comments below. For a detailed list of all the changes in this update, please see the changelog.

Remember: The updates listed here are now live for all users when creating new Documents. Over the next few days, these features will also be available in Documents created before this update.

S1mon · June 2023

Well that took me by surprise. Very happy to see native support for dihedral analysis and creating isoclines! Looking forward to digging in more...

Nick_Holzem · June 2023

Well this is a pleasant surprise

xTimRice · June 2023

Interesting to see analysis tools in the bottom right now. Also love frame libraries. How far off are we now from “raw material” type libraries??

Lucas_Kuhns · June 2023

Very exciting! We will make use of the frame profile libraries right away! I'm not a surfacing guy but I can tell that's a big one too!

Chris_D_Mentes_001 · June 2023

Well these are some delicious new features! the frame library will make a big difference to us!

Also had no idea I could make an arrow style Auxilery view.... Welp better late then never hahaha!
Got some drawings to clean up

S1mon · June 2023

With the new "analysis" button, it seems like draft analysis, "zebras" and "curvature visualization" could all move there. At the moment "interference detection..." shows up under both the view menu and the analysis button.

See also:
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/20405/show-isocurves-seems-out-of-place

Axel_Kollmenter · June 2023

Great improvements! Thanks again

jelte_steur814 · June 2023

Isocline Feature is very useful. I don't use it often, but when you need it, it's very difficult if not impossible to work around using other features. so glad to find it native.
Agree with @S1mon that there are more analyses that can move to that button.
Dihedral analysis is comletely new to me. I guess i would have used isoclines to judge this normally, Dihedral seems more precise.
Does anybody have tips on where to study advanced surfacing? (and i mean fundamentally the quality of design and fundamental features, not just how to make it in Onshape). I've learned a lot in my job and in practice, but would love to learn how/where to take the next step.

M_BÖHME · June 2023

Fantastic, but I wonder why the draft analysis isn't included in the new analyze button as well? If I were the draft analysis, I would feel a little discriminated

mlaflecheCAD · June 2023

Richard and I will Livestream our reactions to the latest update today, Friday, June 30th at 9am Eastern time: https://www.youtube.com/live/K1Xu-h7Tv6Y?feature=share

don_williams909 · June 2023

Nice updates. That said, I find myself in an ever-increasing need for better features and option in sheet metal. The ability to form using a modeled die, similar to what Creo offers is going to be more and more needed as we do more sheet metal work. We're adding more stamped features to a lot of products, and we need Onshape to keep up with / catch up to the rest of the CAD world.

NeilCooke · June 2023

M_BÖHME said:

Fantastic, but I wonder why the draft analysis isn't included in the new analyze button as well? If I were the draft analysis, I would feel a little discriminated

The difference is that draft/color/zebra are shading modes, but I don't see the harm in activating those shade modes from the analysis menu.

ken_dellach455 · June 2023

Oh, this is good!

I didn't try it yet but... For the custom profiles, is there a way to assign part numbers? For instance if the base part number is ABC123-Length, can the length be a suffix? ABC123-350

For Aux views, it would be cool to one day have the centerlines align with the view!

Nice work and a nice surprise!

jnewth_onshape · June 2023

As @S1mon and @M_BÖHME and @NeilCooke all pointed out: There is lots of overlap between "tools that alter the view" (view menu) and "tools that report information" (measure/analysis), and some, like draft and zebra, aren't entirely in one box or the other. Some tools may need to move to better match user expectations. The main goal is to create more analysis tools and to make existing tools more useful and easier to access.

S1mon · June 2023

@jnewth_onshape

I can understand why draft analysis is historically under the view menu (it’s GPU based), but conceptually when I want to understand the draft of a part, the view menu is not where I would ever expect it to be. When I don’t use it for a while I even have to remind myself that it’s there. Working with other engineers I see them struggling to find the draft analysis tool for similar reasons. The view menu has also gotten really long.

MichaelPascoe · June 2023

This will help quite a few users out. Nice improvements Team!

Especially the Frame libraries. Will be showing this to a client next week.

shawn_crocker · June 2023

I like the frames custom library! I'm not certain I will actually define a library but I'm hoping this is a sign render studio might be getting the ability to define custom appearance libraries.

S1mon · June 2023

@shawn_crocker

Good point. This might also be a prelude to "custom standard" content libraries.

Lucas_Kuhns · June 2023

S1mon said:

@shawn_crocker

Good point. This might also be a prelude to "custom standard" content libraries.

That would be awesome!

emagdalenaC2i · July 2023

Great update!!!

En este enlace podéis ver las Novedades de Onshape en español:

https://youtu.be/-QWp3JMW4rQ

kristof_onghena · July 2023

yeeey Dihedral analysis ( never heard of it ) but I still can't export a correct DXF file or work with a touch screen

Maybe you should look in to your priorities...

Alex_Pitt · July 2023

Thanks for the improvements! Look forward to setting up custom profile libraries. Good to know the advanced surfacing features are there and the drawing projected section view is a nice one too

Alex_Pitt · July 2023

@kristof_onghena re "correct DXF" do you mean applying a drawing scale correction on export to make 1:1? (There's an IR for it)

john_allen289 · July 2023

Where Used for Publications. Win Win Win. We can now push on with single end point URL's with traceable data packages for Production.
Great to see Inspection Table updates, love how Onshape does not let minimum viable release features linger for long without getting some polish.
Custom Profiles for Frames, huge for us and our extrusion kitting business.
Thank you Onshape.

Josiah_Harthcock · July 2023

Great job guys! Love the frames update!

kristof_onghena · July 2023

@Alex_Pitt I mean having my dxf's in the units of my work area (mm's instead of inches). There is also an IR for but so far not implemented. Hopefully next time

Ron_van_Dijk · July 2023

Great to see the Isocline now included. I use it when tweaking plastic parts around the parting line. Depending on the type of plastic this should vary from 1-5 degrees.

jack_melvin353 · July 2023

Very cool!

Jeff_Sterrett · July 2023

don_williams909 said:

Nice updates. That said, I find myself in an ever-increasing need for better features and option in sheet metal. The ability to form using a modeled die, similar to what Creo offers is going to be more and more needed as we do more sheet metal work. We're adding more stamped features to a lot of products, and we need Onshape to keep up with / catch up to the rest of the CAD world.

Onshape is lacking in a lot of areas where sheet metal is concerned. It's getting better (very slowly) but it's obvious sheet metal is not one of their main priorities.

Jakub_Kościelniak · July 2023

Where's gone "comma as a decimal separator" from properties?