Parasolid Export: Version retrocompatibility

andrew_troup

@lougallo

For the benefit of those of us who had (or whose clients had) the foresight to step off the Solidworks (or Solid Edge) upgrade treadmill a while back, is there any prospect of offering a deeper bench of Parasolid export versions than is currently on offer?

I run SW2009, and the newest version it will read is 18.0

On behalf of all early dis-adopters, TIA

T_Oda

I think so too.

And it is better that the default version will be set to the last-exported version.

abefeldman

@andrew_troup - I've added an improvement for you to expand the versions of Parasolid we export.  In the meantime, Onshape exports SW 2004, so you may be able to use that as a workaround.

andrew_troup

abefeldman said:

@andrew_troup - I've added an improvement for you to expand the versions of Parasolid we export.  In the meantime, Onshape exports SW 2004, so you may be able to use that as a workaround.

Thanks, @abefeldman. It's good to have that clarified. Indeed that's a viable workaround, but only for parts, but not for assemblies, which (as far as I am aware) can only be exported as parasolid, not Solidworks. 

I can see that putting version information in Help might be problematic, given the level of detail, and the fact that it might be subject to frequent change - especially in the case of, say, Import from Solidworks .

I wonder if there could instead be a web page (with the URL in Help) summarising ALL the versions, for import and export, of sketch profiles, parts and assemblies, to and from ALL available formats?

andrew_troup

Actually my last post contained a factual error. Contrary to what I wrote,
Onshape Assembly files can be exported in Solidworks format.

I do have a good excuse:  it's tedious using online help, so I tend to consult the PDF version, offline.
(For one thing, all the topics are expanded by default, making it unnecessary to look under every rock;
for another, the Table of Contents, index, and searches all work much better in the pdf.)

Here's what it has to say about export formats:



So I assumed my copy was out of date (although it's pretty recent)

However, when I check the online version, it makes the same omissions

I personally think there should be a one-stop Online bulletin board, linked to from Help, from the Forums, and from the modelling app (and from the various export and import buttons), with all the up-to date  info, INCLUDING version info, for ALL situations and formats. 

At present the info (particularly regarding versions) is often either non-existent or virtually undiscoverable.
The reason I suggest this is that it's a fast-changing field, and likely to remain so.
Hence it makes sense to have to change it (and to be able to look for it) in just one "village square" location.

It's at the core of the Onshape ethos: one master document.