Improvements to Onshape - September 1st, 2023

cody_armstrong

It has been exactly 3 weeks since our last update, and like clockwork, we are back with another long list of improvements requested by you! So without further ado, let's dive in. 

GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS

LIST VIEW

List view is a new, intuitive way to navigate your Onshape data based on your product's structure, rather than Documents. 

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/17ta6a8cyf

DRAFT IN RIB FEATURE

You can now add Draft directly within the Rib feature.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/oeinpqt80j

ANGLE REFERENCE IN FRAMES

You can now define an angle reference when creating Frames in Onshape. This is useful when you want to define the angle of a Frame feature relative to other geometry.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/u34nmj4pmv

MID PLANE IN THIN-EXTRUDE AND THICKEN

You can now define both Thin-extrude and Thicken features with a Mid plane offset. This allows you to create geometry that represents the center and quickly offset it equally in both directions. 

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/3n020hsyum

CATEGORIES IN BILL OF MATERIALS

Categories can now be added to your Bill of Materials in Onshape. 

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

COPY/PASTE FROM PART STUDIO

You can now copy a Part from a Part Studio and paste it to an assembly within the same Document. In the past, this was limited to parts already inserted into the assembly.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/z6lj0mbhsl

CONVERT BOOLEANS AND TEXT PARAMETERS TO EXPRESSION

You can now convert booleans and text parameters to an expression. Controlling booleans and text parameters with expressions can be especially useful when creating configurations.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/pni0pc5kkk

IMPORT APPEARANCES

You will find a new option when importing to "Import appearances." It is on by default (meaning appearances are imported by default) but can be unchecked if you do not want the imported model's appearances.

PUBLICATION IMPROVEMENTS

If you share (with export permissions granted) a Publication using Link sharing, the person you have shared with will have the option to print. This can be useful if you share with someone that does not have an Onshape account and they want to create screenshots for documentation, sales, or marketing purposes. 

DRAWINGS IMPROVEMENTS

GEOMETRIC TOLERANCE IMPROVEMENTS

You can now add information to all sides of a Geometric tolerance symbol.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/s1uqsaj9ax

CIRCULAR CENTERMARKS

You can now insert Circular centermarks in Onshape Drawings. This is especially useful for defining bolt circles.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/9yn98z0g9i

EXTERNAL THREAD IMPROVEMENTS

External threads now show a more accurate transition in Onshape Drawings.

FEATURESCRIPT IMPROVEMENTS

WHERE USED FOR FEATURE STUDIOS

Where used now supports Feature Studios. This allows you to quickly find any Part Studio (or Feature Studio) where a specific custom feature has been inserted. 

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/ulskeuo1xi

PROFESSIONAL IMPROVEMENTS

REASSIGN TASKS

Onshape Professional and Enterprise users can now reassign tasks. In the past, the task needed to be deleted and recreated. Only the task creator and company administrator can reassign a task.

ENTERPRISE IMPROVEMENTS

TEAM FILTER FOR ACTION ITEM ANALYTICS

You can now filter Action Item analytics by the team responsible for them. This gives you an easy way to see outstanding Tasks that belong to a specific team.

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

xTimRice

Onshape team working hard 👏

jon_hirschtick

Huge release!  Thank you to my colleagues!

shawn_crocker

Booleans as expressions looks promising!  I think we are getting even closer to having logical, configurable suppression in assemblies and part studios.

S1mon

This is great update. So many things that I was waiting for and few good surprises.

robert_stiles

@shawn_crocker
I was starting to think they had forgotten about configurations.
Good work Onshape

rick_randall

Thanks for cut & copy from part studio - this will be used a lot. Still waiting for custom part  library though.

emagdalenaC2i

Great update with a lot of awesome new features and improvements!!!

ben_partouch

Well that's a big one. Thank you guys

wout_theelen541

Solid update copy/paste from part studio convert booleans and text parameters to expressions will really come in handy.

EvanReese

this one's a heavy hitter! rib draft, boolean/text expressions, mid-planes in thicken/thin, copy/paste to insert parts, frames angle reference! Thanks for all of the work that went into it

matthew_wilson165

Amazing release!  I'm super excited for boolean and text expressions!

ilya_baran

There's actually one more improvement that the OP doesn't mention: now when you make a mistake entering an expression, we will frequently provide a more useful error message than before.  For example, if you enter 3 in + 2 the tooltip will now say "Cannot add length and unitless number"
(Thanks Dan Jacobs)

Chris_D_Mentes_001

YOU MADE CONDITIONAL SUPRESSION. HELL F**KN YEAH! 
I didn't think it would happen so soon!

Chris_D_Mentes_001

Seriously though that was probably the biggest issue I had with making library items. Conditional supresson opens a whole new world!

EvanReese

ilya_baran said:

There's actually one more improvement that the OP doesn't mention: now when you make a mistake entering an expression, we will frequently provide a more useful error message than before.  For example, if you enter 3 in + 2 the tooltip will now say "Cannot add length and unitless number"
(Thanks Dan Jacobs)

This one is actually huge! Thanks for noting it.

EvanReese

Chris_D_Mentes_001 said:

YOU MADE CONDITIONAL SUPRESSION. HELL F**KN YEAH! 
I didn't think it would happen so soon!

Hope I'm wrong, but if you're looking at the booleans-to-expressions thing, it's not conditional suppression exactly, which would be great to have. Boolean-to-expression is still awesome though. I just tested it out a bit and it's worth noting that it works for ALL booleans in a feature including the arrows used to flip an extrude direction or draft angle, which is powerful.

ilya_baran

@Evan_Reese you are correct -- expression-driven suppression is still on our todo list.

dan_manoim

I've been waiting for rib draft for a long time. Great work!

Jerico_Cando

Great and a lot of useful stuff. Looking forward for more improvement.

manolinjr81

Booleans as expressions is awesome, I have been waiting for something like that for a long time. I hope boolean variables are coming too, to keep designs more "DRY", also "suppress as expression" should be awesome too. Great job, Onshape team.

nick_papageorge073

I'm looking forward to playing around with the product structure view. Thanks.

John_vd_Werff

The list view is nice, but it seems to show only items that have been released.
Is it possible to include unreleased items and items without part numbers in the list view?
In early concept designs we don't use part numbers and many concept parts are never released.
We also don't release vendor components.

hugh_rouse

Awesome work! Thank you Onshape team. Make Onshape the greatest CAD package in the world. Death to solidworks.

joe_dagher

Incredible release, expression driven booleans are super exciting

Chris_D_Mentes_001

@Evan_Reese
ugh you're right I completely jumped the gun on that. I've been waititng for the ability to apply logic to suppression. This is still cool but not going to save me hours apon hours of work around yet.

ilya_baran

@manolinjr81 What do you mean by boolean variables?  You can have a variable with a boolean value today -- just have the variable be of type "Any"

danny_payne

Great updates. Thank you

EvanReese

I got into the new expression-driven stuff over the long weekend and made a 16-minute video detailing the experiments I did and what I learned. The functionality is very powerful, but there is a lot I learned that wasn't obvious to me at first, so I hope it can also help other people get up to speed faster. Check it out!
https://youtu.be/6HoMM2A3fm4

glen_dewsbury

@Evan_Reese
Thanks Evan. That was  very clarifying explanation.
You know the next question that will come. Can the part number be retrieved as text for engraving or embossing on a part?

Axel_Kollmenter

Great improvements!