Improvements to Onshape - February 2nd, 2024

Roy_Mutalik · February 1

February is already upon us, so of course we're due for another Onshape update!
First though, we have an exciting announcement:

ONSHAPE VISION APP FOR APPLE VISION PRO

We're delighted to share the release of the Onshape Vision App for Apple Vision Pro. Onshape Vision offers a whole new dimension to product development by bringing 3D digital designs into our physical reality in a way that feels very natural. Users can intuitively explore 3D CAD models with their hands, eyes, and voice – there are no external buttons or controls.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/yg/74s3ipw7fjd4.jpg

For more information, please see the announcement blog post, as well as this forum thread.

As for this release, we've got some exciting new features for design workflows, as well as a handful of useful drawings improvements. Let's take a look!

PART STUDIOS

SHEET METAL BEND

You can now define a Bend in a sheet metal face using a sketched line or curve (including an edge). This will greatly improve modeling from the sheet metal flat pattern workflows.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/2hd40yb3t3

Sheet metal bend is a powerful and capable tool. Please take a look at the full help documentation, including more advanced examples!

IMPROVED MATE CONNECTOR USABILITY

Mate connectors no longer require an Owner part, but now can be owned by virtually anything. This means they can be used in many more applications, especially in layout-based design workflows.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/uv2j8yi3qs

ASSEMBLIES

INSERT PART STUDIO AS RIGID (PARAMETRIC PART STUDIO)

You can now insert an entire Part Studio into an Assembly as rigid, creating a parametric link. If a modification is made in that Part Studio resulting in the creation of a new part, the new part is automatically inserted into the Assembly as well. Similarly, if a part is deleted from the Part Studio, it is removed from the Assembly as well.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/tkpz5r1sqk

Surfaces, sketches, and composite parts are also included in the parametric insert.
If you insert a Part studio to an assembly as rigid but wish to break that link, you may do so by right-clicking on it in the assembly instance list and selecting Dissolve.

DRAWINGS

AUTOMATIC INSPECTION ITEM NUMBERING

You can now automatically number and place Inspection symbols on your drawings. You can choose to insert the symbols to annotations in any number of selected views, an entire drawing sheet, or all sheets in the drawing at once.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/wc1x4g8g07

DRAG AND DROP INSPECTION SYMBOLS

You can drag and drop Inspection symbols between any unassigned annotations. Moving the Inspection symbol automatically updates in the Inspection table.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/pz/chy7eq926tu1.gif

SHOW/HIDE HIDDEN EDGES FROM CONTEXT MENU

You may now select and show specific hidden edges in a drawing view, without having to show all hidden edges first.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/4gn2rcf2ef

REFERENCE CENTER SELECTION - CENTERMARKS

A new Reference center checkbox has been added to the Centermark dialog under the Circular option.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/i5/cy5pd7cabgya.gif

ALIGN CENTERMARKS TO AN EDGE

You can now right-click and select Align centermark from the context menu to align centermarks to an edge, sketch, or centerline.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/eh/yz1vj61zc7wu.gif

AUXILIARY VIEW OF A CROPPED VIEW

You can now define a Auxiliary view from a parent view that has been cropped.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/65ypcguufs

LEARNING CENTER IMPROVEMENTS

NEW COURSE - NAVIGATING A DOCUMENT

Navigating a Document introduces new users to Onshape Documents. Learn how a document goes beyond traditional CAD files, and master tools to organize and extract data from Onshape documents.

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.

xTimRice · February 2

Parametric part studio is actually so helpful!! Will use it in almost every doc.

rick_randall · February 2

Bends from lines - Yes ! - Overall great set of improvments

Cyberphil · February 2

Lots of good updates here! Love the ability to insert an entire part studio worth of parts, but it would be nice if there were some way to select only certain parts.

Adding mate connectors to sketches is cool, but you STILL can't add it to composite parts, which is very frustrating.

S1mon · February 2

A bunch of very useful improvements.

Mate Connectors attached to sketches and curves is huge for how I like to design things top-down. Sheet metal bend means I can retire @MBartlett21's Fold SM. Parametric part studios are going to be very helpful for a lot of applications. All the drawing and inspection updates are making Onshape Drawings that much more competitive.

Marc_Miller · February 2

The linked rigid part studio in assembles will be so useful! Excellent.
And bend via a sketched line is great too.

malay_kumar · February 2

Cyberphil said:

Adding mate connectors to sketches is cool, but you STILL can't add it to composite parts, which is very frustrating.

Mate connectors added to constituents of composite part appear in assembly when inserting composites and to the most part equivalent to owning mate connector by composite part. What are you not able to do currently with respect to adding mate connector to composite?

bryan_lagrange · February 2

Sketch bend!

Cyberphil · February 2

malay_kumar said:
Mate connectors added to constituents of composite part appear in assembly when inserting composites and to the most part equivalent to owning mate connector by composite part. What are you not able to do currently with respect to adding mate connector to composite?

Honestly I did not know that, so that is helpful. Does that still work if you use closed composite parts? Wouldn't the child part go away?

ken_xu · February 2

insert part studio as rigid is great, i don't need to create a subassembly to make it "rigid" ever again! Onshape team rocks!

malay_kumar · February 2

Cyberphil said:

Honestly I did not know that, so that is helpful. Does that still work if you use closed composite parts? Wouldn't the child part go away?

It works for closed composite also.

brucebartlett · February 3

Great set of improvements. Sketch bend will be very handy.

billyzelsnack · February 3

holy cow.

Is the age of constantly rebuilding assemblies after part studio changes finally over?
AND
I get to mate my sketches!

In the same update? Amazing work onshape!

Lucas_Kuhns · February 3

Great update! I was dreaming of a "rigid body mode" the other week. Now just make the BOM detect that all 4 of those gussets are really the same and we will be golden!

And now I want a VisionPro. I knew ya'll would come out with something, but wow on day one? Great job.

Cary_Bettenhausen · February 3

The wizards at Onshape keep knocking it out of the park! I’m so happy to have left SolidWorks for Onshape (and bring my employer with me!). I could never go back.

shawncrocker · February 3

I can hardly believe all this! So many things I have been wanting. Mate connector owned by sketches. rigid part studios. Going to be very useful.

shawncrocker · February 3

S1mon said:

A bunch of very useful improvements.

Mate Connectors attached to sketches and curves is huge for how I like to design things top-down. Sheet metal bend means I can retire @MBartlett21's Fold SM. Parametric part studios are going to be very helpful for a lot of applications. All the drawing and inspection updates are making Onshape Drawings that much more competitive.

Me too! Can't wait to see if the onshape version will cross over cutouts in the sheet metal?

svenolov_nystrom · February 3

Thanks for this updade! Mate connectors parenting has been nuciance, this it is exactly what I have missing in Onshape.
Make an weld assembly and subsequent part and drawings in a proper way has been almost impossible in Onshape.
I hope the new insert part studio as rigid can make a change, I will check it out.

emagdalenaC2i · February 3

Great update!!

En este enlace podéis ver las Novedades de Onshape en español:

https://youtu.be/MSp19Zfbgu4

john_mcclary · February 3

Very nice.
I'm happy we can now export in Y-Axis up.
On of my customers always requests that, so I always had a separate assembly with the object on its side.
Glad I don't have to do that anymore...

Mate connectors on sketch, that is something I've been trying to do for a while.

what does this mean?

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/ag/xtbbkiex8knf.png

If someone gets the Apple Vision, please let me know your take on it

Cyberphil · February 3

malay_kumar said:
It works for closed composite also.

Excellent! Very happy to hear this.

jakeramsley · February 3

john_mcclary said:

what does this mean?

hi john_mcclary,

If a variable is being used in a Part Studio and is renamed via the Variable Table, the rename would propagate through the features using it. Now this is also true if the variable is created in a Variable Studio and Insert into all Part Studios and Assemblies is enabled.

ex.

Create Variable Studio
Enable Insert into all Part Studios and Assemblies
Create a variable
Go to Part Studio
Create a feature and use variable
Open Variable Table and rename variable

S1mon · February 3

@jakeramsley

Are there any cases left now where renaming a variable results in two disconnected variables instead of one?

emagdalenaC2i · February 3

I have created a new update to the C2i FS Sketched Bend FeatureScript. This update is specifically tailored to integrate seamlessly with Onshape's latest features.
This FeatureScript allows you to create double sketched bends.

https://youtu.be/iKTmWYCmeFk
This Macro is included in the Onshape C2i Business program that we provide to all our Onshape clients.

daniel_johnsen167 · February 3

The sheet metal feature is definitely a game changer for me. I was a bit hesitant to use Onshape, but because of this feature alone it makes it alot more worth it to me. Coming from many years in Inventor, Onshape is definitely a force to be reckoned with. Mega update, guys!

Nicholas · February 4

Very useful additions to the software. I especailly like the rigid option. Still adjusting to Onshape from SolidWorks but with good updates likes this, I can find more reasons to like the software.

_anton · February 4

S1mon said:

@jakeramsley
Are there any cases left now where renaming a variable results in two disconnected variables instead of one?

Most notable caveat is that this only works in a workspace (when you update a versioned reference to a Variable Studio, the uses won't update). This would be a largely disconnected improvement and, IMO, isn't nearly as important.

guy_rogel · February 4

With this new update , I would love to have the option to decide for a part studio if it is "show only assembly" , "show assembly and parts" , "show parts only
" . it will enable to use a part studio insted of a sub ssembly special if there is no movment...

matthew_stacy · February 4

"Parametric Part Studio" (insert part studio as "Rigid") seems to be limited to static groups of parts. Part additions or deletions propagate from Part Studio to Assembly, but wouldn't it be great if those individual parts could subsequently mated to allow controlled degrees of freedom? "Rigid" is a great tool for limited applications.

The underlying core functionality is part associativity. I would prefer to see an option to select Rigid/Free.

don_williams909 · February 4

Wow! A couple of really great things in this update. The "Parametric Part Studio" is fantastic, and I can't tell you the number of times I needed to align a centerline with an edge. Very nice!

Chris_D_Mentes_001 · February 4

I legitimatelly started yelling "Wohooo", clapping and cheering out loud alone in my office for rigid part studio import & Auxilary views on cropped elevation.
You just saved me hours of work once again. I am blown away. A feature I didn't even know I needed. Bravo!