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Mate Connectors Need Some Love
S1mon
Member Posts: 2,375 PRO
I've become more and more dependent on Multi Mate Connector from @konstantin_shiriazdanov. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to be active and maintaining it any more.
MMC is great for adding MCs to a bunch of parts all at the same place, and it also has some features to allow mate connectors to be placed in locations which can't be easily done with the built in tools. However, it's not great at keeping the internal IDs consistent, so I end up having to redo mates in my assemblies more than I would like. This is a great example of how, as users, we come to depend on custom features because important functionality is missing in Onshape, but without maintenance, these custom tools can be frustrating.
In general, there are so many places where mate connectors could use some little improvements:
Maybe because there are so many "paper cut" level annoyances, and many of these don't get a ton of votes, they don't get the focus they need. However, I see them collectively as a ton of opportunities to make small changes which add to more systematic ways to use the power of MCs to accomplish modeling and assembly tasks.
MMC is great for adding MCs to a bunch of parts all at the same place, and it also has some features to allow mate connectors to be placed in locations which can't be easily done with the built in tools. However, it's not great at keeping the internal IDs consistent, so I end up having to redo mates in my assemblies more than I would like. This is a great example of how, as users, we come to depend on custom features because important functionality is missing in Onshape, but without maintenance, these custom tools can be frustrating.
In general, there are so many places where mate connectors could use some little improvements:
- Allow the standard MC tool to add stable MCs to more than one part at a time (i.e. replace most of what I use MMC for) Ability to assign one mate connector to several parts at time
- More options for placing MCs on curves and surfaces: Mate Connector Normal to End of Curve, Mate Connectors Normal to Rounds and Surfaces, Allow Curves to Use Mate Connectors as Vertices, Align mate connector with primary axis normal to curve or non linear edge
- Allow mate connectors to belong to a sketch, Mate Connectors in Sketches, Allow mate connectors to be owned by surfaces and curves
- Measurement improvements: Measure Angles from Mate Connector, Measure Mate Connector Orientation, measure between mate connectors in mate connector frame, Measure from more mate connectors (midpoints, centroids, etc.)
- More orientation options when creating MCs: Realign Secondary Axis of Mate Connector to a hole or other similar features, Mate Connector definition from another Mate Connector, Mate Connector placed "Between Entity" on two drafted surfaces should lie on the mid-plane, More Primary Axis Options for Origin Mate Connector in Part Studio, 3 point option for implicit mate connector
- Naming/finding: Automatically name mates with name of first part selected, Easier Way to Find Mates Associated with Parts
- Improve UX of limit mates: Mate option to flip offset/limit direction
- Promoting implicit to explicit (we have some clever ease of use things with variables, now is the time to do this with MCs): Toggle Implicit Mate Connector to Explicit Mate Connector, Keep Implicit Mate Connector after Use
- Enabling implicit MCs in more and more places: Move Face with Point to Point Translation, Measure Tool: Implicit Mate connector function to measure distance between two mate connectors
Maybe because there are so many "paper cut" level annoyances, and many of these don't get a ton of votes, they don't get the focus they need. However, I see them collectively as a ton of opportunities to make small changes which add to more systematic ways to use the power of MCs to accomplish modeling and assembly tasks.
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Comments
One simple improvement to MMC I'd love to see: the ability to name the mate connector.