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Designing using other parts for reference.
dave_franchino
Member Posts: 54 ✭✭
in General
Hey kind folks - Recovering Solidworks user here - I'm generally enjoying the transition to Onshape but still struggling with some old design strategies that don't work in Onshape. Here's my lates dilemma.
I'm doing some design work that builds on existing parts. I've used a 3D scanner to scan in representations of those parts but they come into Onshape in odd orientations - not center on the origin, off angle, etc. In my current workflow I use the incoming scan (which is huge and very difficult to work with) in order to create a crude blocky representation of the existing part that I'd like to reference for new designs but I'm not sure how.
In Solidworks I would "assemble" the representation of the existing part to the orthogonal origin and planes and the place an empty part into the assembly where I could design new parts over the top of it. But to the best of my knowlege you can't "design" in assembly in Onshape the way you can in Solidworks. I know you can insert a "derived" part into a new part studio but when I do that he reference part comes in off-axis and not on the origin. So I appear to be stuck.
Any techniques for designing using "reference" parts that are not in a preferred orientation?? I'm sure there are work arounds but I REALLY miss having access to part features and the ability to design in Assembly mode. I keep running into situations that could be easily fixed if I had access to planes or individual features or could design in assembly mode like I could in Solidworks - what am I missing?
Raw scan:
Reference part created from the raw scan used for design reference
when I insert the reference part into a new part studio as a derived part it comes in on the original scan's origin and orientation which isn't particularly useful:
I'm doing some design work that builds on existing parts. I've used a 3D scanner to scan in representations of those parts but they come into Onshape in odd orientations - not center on the origin, off angle, etc. In my current workflow I use the incoming scan (which is huge and very difficult to work with) in order to create a crude blocky representation of the existing part that I'd like to reference for new designs but I'm not sure how.
In Solidworks I would "assemble" the representation of the existing part to the orthogonal origin and planes and the place an empty part into the assembly where I could design new parts over the top of it. But to the best of my knowlege you can't "design" in assembly in Onshape the way you can in Solidworks. I know you can insert a "derived" part into a new part studio but when I do that he reference part comes in off-axis and not on the origin. So I appear to be stuck.
Any techniques for designing using "reference" parts that are not in a preferred orientation?? I'm sure there are work arounds but I REALLY miss having access to part features and the ability to design in Assembly mode. I keep running into situations that could be easily fixed if I had access to planes or individual features or could design in assembly mode like I could in Solidworks - what am I missing?
Raw scan:
Reference part created from the raw scan used for design reference
when I insert the reference part into a new part studio as a derived part it comes in on the original scan's origin and orientation which isn't particularly useful:
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