Things that frustrate/annoy me in Onshape (by a newbie)

3dcad

Hopefully you are on windows platform since that's the only one having currently drivers with browser (onshape) support for 3d mouse. 

john_smith077

3dcad said:

Hopefully you are on windows platform since that's the only one having currently drivers with browser (onshape) support for 3d mouse. 

Yeup. Win8.1. At some point in the next few weeks Win 10.


Yes the 3DConnexion 3D mouse it works BRILLIANTLY when use camera mode and I reverse everything in sight. i.e. when you push the tap the part goes further away and when you move the cap to the right, so does the part. It's almost like touching the thing. 

I haven't found a sensible use for the two buttons yet. Any suggestions?

3dcad

I have the model with few more buttons and I have assigned hotkeys like d, n, i, space + default esc, shift etc. it almost replaces the need for raising hands to reach keyboard.. I found these hotkeys by testing different setups of my most used hotkeys

Stephen_Inoue

I think a newbie's perspective on 3D rotation in OnShape is valid, even if not everyone agrees. I was happy to see OnShape supports the 3D Connexion Space Navigator and can't wait to try it. I do think that OnShape should optimize to fully support a 4 way scroll wheel mouse and let users easily rotate and view their objects than is currently supported. Apple's new 3D touch trackpad should also be supported as I find the current trackpad implementation pretty bad. This is one area that PCs definitely excel in.

john_smith077

Newbie Update:
Although I now have a 3DConnexion 3D mouse (which is superb albeit darned pricey), in practice I find myself using the 2D mouse more than the 3D mouse, despite the fact that I still find the way it instantly loses vertical deeply irritating. [And yes I have also worked out how to get vertical back by rotate my parts clockwise/anticlockwise on the screen by clicking and dragging small circles with my 2D mouse!]  

All I want is *some* way of doing what is apparently called "Orbit".

3dcad

john_smith077 said:

Newbie Update:
Although I now have a 3DConnexion 3D mouse (which is superb albeit darned pricey), in practice I find myself using the 2D mouse more than the 3D mouse, ..

Give it some time, a year or two and you will be crippled without it

It's almost same thing as when mouse was introduced as a way to interact together with keyboard - for some things it's superb but some things are still better to do with just using keyboard.  

dimitri_stoikof

Fully agree with @john_smith077 - as a newbie, coming from tools like TinkerCad (lots of us 3D printing hobbyists here) rotating is what keeps me from using OnShape even though it's a far better tool.

mark_render

I am finding that when using onshape with a 3Dconnexion spacemouse, all the rotation controls are reversed.  Has anyone else found this? and is there a solution to it?  I don't really want to have to go into the global settings of the mouse itself as this will mess it up for the other 3D software I use.

mark_render

..solved with a driver update.

leo_wang913

I agree with you John so much. I am glad that I am not alone. As a newbie coming from tinker cad, I feel extremely disoriented by the way viewing on OnShape works. I hope there will be at least an option for newcomers to switch view perspectives (it doesn't have to be default, just add it plz). Has 

byron_brummer

VERY much in agreement with john_smith077, this effectively random rotation control is absolutely maddening and simply at odds with both intuition AND nearly every 3D navigation tool in existence.

I've read through the thread and I'm still struggling to understand any use case where this rotation "style" is beneficial?  All the counter-arguments seem to coalesce around two flavors:

1. "This is how (some) other programs work (but we can't/won't explain why)"
2. "There are workarounds, therefore nothing to fix.  That the workarounds are unintuitive, tedious, and/or require expensive hardware is a feature...not a bug".
   

Is it really that big of an ask for a "Lock horizontal rotation" option?

I too am new to Onshape.  I'm in the process of evaluation all affordable CAD programs.  The UI is critical: I have no idea why, but the defacto-standard of 3D CAD programs is to make the UI as deliberately unintuitive and tedious as possible.  The more expensive the cost, the less intuitive it is.  The added power is a poor excuse: There's absolutely no legitimate reason a program like Onshape should be so much more difficult to work in than say, TinkerCad.

In a few hours you can be building models in TinkerCad that'll take you months to learn how to create in the likes of Onshape, Fusion360, etc.

Why is that a feature and not a bug?  The only logical reason I can come up with is that it's in the financial interest of working professionals to keep the barriers to entry as high as possible.  The difficulty is deliberate and reasoned: It's job protection.

byron_brummer

For others finding this thread in frustration as I did, hold ALT down to get sane orbiting (I'd love to invert this, make constrained be default and ALT used for the current random orbit).

This tip saved me from dumping Onshape in the trash heap.  Yes, un-constrained orbiting is that much of a show stopper.  Thank goodness Onshape apparently offers it, albeit unintuitively:

https://www.onshape.com/en/resource-center/tech-tips/tech-tip-rotation-with-an-upright-vertical-axis#:~:text=Rotating%20an%20object%20in%203D,right%20mouse%20button%20and%20drag.

a_b641

byron_brummer said:

For others finding this thread in frustration as I did, hold ALT down to get sane orbiting (I'd love to invert this, make constrained be default and ALT used for the current random orbit).
 

Thank you so much for this. It's been driving me crazy for days and I was 1 Google search away from uninstalling and trying some other programs mentioned in this thread .