Improvements to Onshape - January 12th, 2024

cody_armstrong · January 10

It's the first update of 2024, and we are hitting the ground running. This update includes a number of highly-requested improvements, so we hope you enjoy! Let's dive in.

CAD IMPROVEMENTS

DECALS

You can now insert Decals into Part Studios. Decals are visible in Part Studios, assemblies, and shaded drawing views, and can be useful for inserting company logos or warning/hazard labels.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/tj1y7xk92m

OFFSET CURVE

Offset curve allows you to offset an edge as a curve on a face. This has a number of uses, as it makes it easy to create offset curves that are attached to a face.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/cjusec3bcy

FILTER BRANCHES

You can now filter the version graph to only show branches with active workspaces. This makes it easier to filter out old information.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/xh3q8i73a2

DERIVED IMPROVEMENTS

Hide and show the individual entities inserted using a Derived feature. In the past, this was limited to hiding or showing the entire feature. This also includes custom features that import other features.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/pr8xe6ci4j

VIEW-ONLY DISPLAY STATES

Display states can now be shared with View-only permissions. This makes it easier for non-CAD users to navigate a complex assembly.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/tv6871g4r1

RELEASE VARIABLE STUDIO

It is now possible to release Variable studios. This allows Variable studios to go through your company's defined approval and release processes.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/9d/4emd1m1q9887.png

PROFESSIONAL IMPROVEMENTS

REORDER CUSTOM PROPERTIES

Onshape Professional and Enterprise administrators can now reorder their custom properties. This can be useful when you want the most important properties higher in the list.

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

CHANGE DATE FORMAT

It is now possible to change the date format for date type properties in your company settings.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/vc/bquwpmma4dz4.gif

ENTERPRISE IMPROVEMENTS

SCHEDULE REPORTS

Enterprise administrators and Analytics administrators can now schedule reports for custom dashboards to run on a regular basis. The results will be emailed to the defined recipients with a frequency and in a format you choose.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/oc/wp7ygtnd5eum.png

DRAWINGS IMPROVEMENTS

SECTION VIEW IMPROVEMENTS

You can now create a Section view (and Aligned section view) from a Detail view.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/hialtzzhq8

DRAWING DEFINITION LIST EXPORT OPTION

When exporting an Inspection table, you can now export all dimensions to CSV with the new "Drawing definition list" export option.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/zfxx524g01

LEARNING CENTER IMPROVEMENTS

SELF-GUIDED ONSHAPE BOOTCAMP IN FRENCH, GERMAN, AND SIMPLIFIED CHINESE

Onshape's Self-Guided Bootcamp is now localized in French, German, and Simplified Chinese. The entire interface, closed captions, transcripts, and exercises are now all fully translated to ensure the best learning experience. The language selector is located in the bottom left while you are inside the Learning Center.

ADVANCED PART DESIGN COURSE IMPROVEMENTS

A new video on Decals has been added to the Advanced Part Design Course. It instructs users on utilizing the new Decal feature within a Part Studio.

UNDERSTANDING CURVES COURSE IMPROVEMENTS

A new video on Offset curve has been added to the Understanding Curves course. It instructs users on utilizing the powerful, new Offset curve feature.

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.

Nath_McC · January 12

Brilliant update. I'm so happy about the change in the default date.

glen_dewsbury · January 12

Excellent round of updates.

xTimRice · January 12

Brb, putting Onshape decals on all my models 🎉

Cary_Bettenhausen · January 12

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/tg/o17jr90tawbe.gif

Cary_Bettenhausen · January 12

Decals, finally. YES!

shawn_crocker · January 12

Re ordering custom properties is huge.

Marc_Miller · January 12

Yay decals! Excellent.
And the derived improvements is another great one.
Thank you

MichaelPascoe · January 12

Starting off the year strong, this is an amazing update! Ty Onshape team!

jason_1 · January 12

I think my fav in this list is treating Derives more like folders in the feature tree just because that was one of my first feature requests years ago, but really this whole update is great.

Rhett_Robinson · January 12

Wow, we are off to a fantastic start! Offset curve and show/hide capabilities for derived parts are some things my team have been waiting for. Nice work Onshape!

don_b · January 12

Tried to find decal and features for derived .....see screen shot .....no joy .....is there a trick for me to get this ?

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/s0/sc8mv0b26o5z.png

NeilCooke · January 12

don_b said:

Tried to find decal and features for derived .....see screen shot .....no joy .....is there a trick for me to get this ?

See the footnote in the OP 😀 - may have to wait until Monday.

paolo_cianci · January 12

Section view from a Detail view.
I hope that the next update will arrive the section view from a broken view.

don_b · January 12

found features for derived...on new derived part so that part works.

don_b · January 12

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.

ok will wait a while thank you for the heads up....if all else fails "read the instructions"

adrian_vlzkz · January 12

Massive start to the year!

great work team

BOA_Technology · January 12

We are stoked on the Derived feature improvements. This will be so helpful for master sketch modeling.

Josiah_Harthcock · January 12

Yes please! Looking forward to decals and section views of detail view!

S1mon · January 12

Really happy to see Decals, Offset Curve, Filter Branches, Derived Improvements, etc...

With Decals, a couple of quick observations (some of which are in the help for the feature):

You probably do not want to just use "face" as a reference for critical graphic placements. The center of a face is a pretty useless thing unless you never change the shape of the object. If you just chamfer the corner of a rectangle, the center (really the centroid) of the face will move. Thankfully there is a "realign" option which allows you to use a more stable reference for the center and the horizontal axis.
Despite saying that you're picking a face, it will not work on arbitrary surfaces. It does work on cylinders, but not even on cones. The face doesn't need to belong to a solid, but it seems like it needs to be flat or cylindrical.
You can use transparency in an image file to have just the graphic show up without a background.
Decals are hidden and show with the body (solid or surface) that they belong to. If you wanted to place a decal on a surface which was curved in 3d, you could make a dummy surface which approximates that with a piece of a cylinder. By making that surface 100% transparent (the "a" slider in the appearance pane), and not showing edges, you could make a decal "float" and seem to be on a part which currently can't support a decal. Hopefully this will change at some point and it will be possible to add a decal to any shaped object.

For Offset curve, the help is a little more clear than the new training material on the difference between geodesic and euclidean. (Defining geodesic as geodesic is pretty poor practice for training). Geodesic is the shortest path along the surface (think airplane flight paths), Euclidean is the shortest straight line distance in 3D space, which might go through the object. For flat surfaces, there's no difference between these two options.

Hans_Ole_Leirvik · January 13

Wow, lots of good stuff

nikhil_shringarpurey · January 13

Nice improvements! Please don't forget some of the quality of life stuff like direct SVG imports, too! Having DXF only is just too limiting in 2024.

christopher_dziuba · January 13

Holy crapadoodles this is insane! The decals 100% Noice!
Derive improvements, shared display states & Sections on details will certainly come in mighty handy!

martin_kopplow · January 13

The offset curve on face is important to me, and also the derived improvements.

Decals may seem small at first glance, but I missed them and will probably use them a lot, for they make sense in so many small ways. They should get a project or wrap option for all kind of surfaces, though. Thank you!

Lucas_Kuhns · January 13

Very exciting. So happy to see the decals feature. The split face and recolor faces was working but getting to be a very cumbersome process. Since we want our decals to still be parts, I just tested a simple workflow of extruding a simple sketch with the outside dimensions, and sticking the decal to it. Seems to work great!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/j9/ptpxbxem0qqn.png

Also very stoked about reordering the property fields.

danny_payne · January 14

Great updates. Thank you

eric_pesty · January 14

Lots of good stuff in this one again!

It looks like the decal feature is a really good start and will be very handy as-is but it does need to be expanded to conform to "arbitrary" surfaces as well as span multiple faces (with projection options), although I just noticed I managed to get some interesting results by splitting/moving a face after creating a decal!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/ui/oh4psjyxd16k.png

I think controlling the visibility of individual elements of a derive is my second favorite here!

sebastian_glanzner · January 14

Amazing update! I like the decals a lot!

Thank you Team Onshape for all your hard work

jari_laaksonen · January 14

Could you explain me what's the purpose of decals? I can see them in parts and in assembly, but not in drawings or STL. I would like to place images on my desings so that I could use them directly in laser engravings or CNC.

S1mon · January 14

Hmmm. Somehow I assumed that decals showed up in drawings. Without that they aren't very useful for many applications.

Edit. Decals DO show up in drawings, but the view has to be a shaded view. As far as I can tell it's not possible to dimension the location of the decal.

I've added another improvement request: https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/22837/enable-decals-in-drawings-including-support-for-dimensioning-location/p1?new=1

Marc_Miller · January 14

jari_laaksonen said:

Could you explain me what's the purpose of decals? I can see them in parts and in assembly, but not in drawings or STL. I would like to place images on my desings so that I could use them directly in laser engravings or CNC.

@jari_laaksonen The STL format doesn't support any sort of texturing. When you export something as STL any texturing or color is lost.