Improvements to Onshape - January 12th, 2024

eric_pesty

@S1mon
Interesting!
Surely this suggests they will be adding the functionality to project onto arbitrary surfaces if it already works from a technical standpoint... I'm guessing it's just a matter of coming up with a user interface for it and getting feedback on the current version before expanding.

I was also hoping it would translate to RenderStudio but I'm guessing that is also just a matter of time...

Marc_Miller

Cool find @S1mon and @romeograham. Yes, hopefully decals can further be improved.

I also messed with using two transparent decals and they didn't overlap as I would have expected. The first one I applied was showing up on top of the second one.

S1mon

Turns out, in addition to replace face, move face and draft also "work" on faces with decals - in the sense that the decals will move/distort with the face in somewhat predictable ways. These tricks also work on faces which start out cylindrical.

I added some more tests to this public document. You can experiment with rolling back or suppress/unsuppress each of the last 4 features on this document.

Interestingly, some of the modifications will cause parts of the original image to drift off the edge of the face or reappear.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/90a5f4a2e4c82c3112b45338/w/b4113935addb002bd1cda68d/e/db6161dcadb1e7413d83e653

Philip_Thomas_PTC

I take my eyes off this thread for 5 minutes and we have Beavis/ButtHead and people hot-wiring Onshape!

Quick story - I wrote the original spec for decals in 2015 (or thereabouts), and it called for planar and cylindrical surfaces only because 'decals' (also known as 'appliques') was the original use case (other surface shapes cause the decals to physically wrinkle). The intent was never for decals to be a texturing tool or material representation. With the advent of PCB studio, being able to import an image of the board (or potentially even generate a trace image), became another use case that would work using just planar and cylindrical faces (including (should it ever happen), ribbon cables or other flexible circuits).

Things I would like:

1) To be a fly on the wall during the QA standup tomorrow morning! 



2) More importantly - If you believe that there is a use-case for decals on additional surface topologies that ISNT a shader or material/texture representation, then please open an enhancement request detailing the use-case. 

Thank you.

MichaelPascoe

Nice find @romeograham!

S1mon

@Philip_Thomas_PTC

I created an IR for 3D surfaces before @romeograham figured out the replace face hack.
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/22824/allow-decals-on-surfaces-with-3d-curvature

As I mention in there, pad printing on consumer products which have some compound curvature is a really obvious example (at least in my experience), but also things like packaging with either labels that are developable surfaces (even if they're not cylindrical) or there are all kinds of graphics which are shrunk-wrapped or dipped onto products (hydrographics). 

Here's a pretty extreme example of pad printing on a soccer ball:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gonNrmRnto

Here's a shrink sleeve machine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIO4l2P2bJI

Here's a production hydrographic line adding fake woodgrain to a plastic part:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpXk4tYbcT0

Here's another production hydrographic line adding graphics to vacuum bottles:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/u01-7oILv3A

There's also a related IR to add dimensions to locate the graphic on a drawing. That will likely be more complex, but typically what I've ended up doing is actually making a split surface or a very small extrusion or thickened area (~0.03 mm - roughly the thickness of the ink) so I have edges to attach dimensions to. That's assuming a single color thing which isn't too crazy to turn into geometry. It requires getting the graphic as an Illustrator file, converting to a DXF and scaling and locating it correctly. The actual graphic is always controlled by the Illustrator file if it's printed onto the product, but the 2D mechanical drawing controls the placement and tolerances. 

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/22837/fully-enable-decals-in-drawings-including-support-for-dimensioning-location

rick_randall

Am I the only one thinking decals and cosmetic threads?

Philip_Thomas_PTC

@S1mon - Very helpful list and examples - thank you. More coming in the future

Cary_Bettenhausen

We often use Decals to represent laser etching on parts with machined cavities where our prevous CAD would "project" one Decal onto multiple surfaces in one feature as in the attached image. I have submitted a request to add this functionality to Onshape. Right now, it would take 9 decal features to do the same on this part.