Improvements to Onshape - August 29th, 2024

cody_armstrong · August 27

It has only been 17 days since our last release, and we are back with another one. This update includes a long list of improvements in areas like assemblies, drawings, and more. Let's dive in.

ASSEMBLY IMPROVEMENTS

LOCK/FOLLOW SUBASSEMBLY

You can now lock the position of a subassembly within a top-level assembly. When enabled, the movement of the subassembly is restricted. You also have the option to follow a subassembly named position. This allows you to use named positions from the subassembly to orient the subassembly in the top level.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/ogxsl8ba1r

ISOLATE AND MAKE TRANSPARENT ASSEMBLY FOLDER

Folders in the Instances list of an assembly can now be isolated and made transparent.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/yub1ne6w00

IMPLICIT MATE CONNECTOR IN ASSEMBLY PATTERNS

It is now possible to use implicit mate connectors when defining an assembly pattern. This makes it easier to create patterns with geometry that doesn't have an easily defined reference.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/p315ctsx8x

SET TO MIN/MAX MATE LIMITS

You can now set a mate's position to either its minimum or maximum mate limit value.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/84o52s47rx

REORDER NAMED POSITIONS

Named positions can now be reordered. When right-clicking a Named position you will see new options to Move up or Move down.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/w0/l5jpjtr58pji.png

PART STUDIO IMPROVEMENTS

NORMAL TO FACE CURVE PATTERN

You will find new a new Normal to face orientation option when creating Curve pattern features in Onshape. This new option creates a pattern that is normal to selected faces at each pattern instance along the curve.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/9qvs3vcmm4

DRAWING IMPROVEMENTS

NOMINAL AND TOLERANCE COLUMN IN INSPECTION PANEL

You can now add Nominal and Tolerance as a single column to your company's Inspection tables. In the past, these were only available as two separate columns.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/v609eoo26a

GROUP CALLOUTS WITH VIEW

You can now group callouts with a view. When grouped, callouts move with the view.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/68pc16jr4p

GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS

CLEAR ALL SELECTIONS

When right-clicking a set of selections, you will find a new option to Clear all selections. In the past, the only way to clear all selections was the spacebar.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/pu6p22l0mq

RELEASE MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENTS

RESET PART NUMBER TYPE

You will find a new company setting for Change Part number type under Revision tools. This new option allows you to reset a given part number, allowing it to be used by a different object type.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/9bszcv2px8

LEARNING CENTER IMPROVEMENTS

The Onshape Learning Center has a completely new landing page with buttons to guide you on your learning journey. The CAD Basics and Onshape Fundamentals pathways have been updated with new content essential to succeeding in Onshape.

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.

Kaushal_Sharma · August 29

Locking the position of a subassembly within a top-level assembly is very cool.

xTimRice · August 29

BIG assembly motion improvements here!

ilya_baran · August 29

I'll add that in FeatureScript, we added the undefined-coalescing operator ?? (and the assignment version ??=). a ?? b evaluates to a if a is not undefined and to b otherwise. It's useful for specifying default values.

Caden_Armstrong · August 29

Good stuff is always tucked in the changelog notes. New qInFrontOfPlane is nice.

S1mon · August 29

Tricky. The last release got delayed until a Monday, and here we have a slightly early Thursday release (perhaps in deference to US Labor Day weekend?).

Definitely some good quality of life improvements.

Lock/follow is great. I could imagine some people/companies wanting Lock to be the default. Perhaps a future improvement?

I'm going to have to play with the normal to face curve pattern option and try to recreate some of the more painful patterns I've see in the past.

Nick_Holzem · August 29

Christmas came early!

Normal to Face Curve and Group callout, my favorite headliners

Nice stocking stuffers in the changelog too, like add clear missing references option for Loft and Fill features

In addition to "Clear All" option, how about adding a "Clear all suppressed"? Works great when cleaning out design options for features like delete part, or booleans when different parts or surfaces are being is used.

Paul_Arden · August 29

We did also add Space Mouse support for Render Studio into this release for those lucky enough to have one of these devices.

STEG · August 30

👏

3dcad · August 30

Nice features for assembly 👌🏻

And great to have space mouse support in render studio too

Nicole_Phillips · August 30

Fantastic release!! For us Admins, this reset Part Number feature is going to be really great for me! Very excited! Thank you Onshape!

martin_kopplow · August 30

Looks great! I'll have to play around with some, but lock/follow assemblies is my immediate favourite, together with set to min/max for mates, followed by SpaceMouse support in RenderStudio and normal to face curve pattern. Overall, I expect this update to make life easier in quite some critical places.

Callouts grouped with drawing views should be default, though. Ungroup only when needed.

christopher_dziuba · September 1

Oh wow wasn't ready for this one. Short and sweet, good work team!

Simon_Kozin · September 3

I just wanted to say how well put together these summaries are. The post is short and simple but it makes it easy and enjoyable to keep up to date with the improvements. The short videos are well done and generally enough to convey the changes. I find this is the only "change summary" that I read regularly. Thank you!

birger_kullmann · September 3

NiceI will check it out for sure.

Onshape has always been mostly excellent except for the last 2 or 3 days And this is why I am posting here.
Some of my assemblies suddenly are empty or partly empty ? (parts and subassemblies only showing in tree. Not hidden or suppressed.)

Two tickets are sent and 'I'm unable to use Onshape since parts keep disappearing when I bring up older versions.. No answer so far.

Solution will be much appreciated as I do this for a living.

BR

danny_payne · September 4

Great improvements to assembly and drawings. I always love the drawing improvements.

Michael_Bills · September 4

I had a support ticket halfway written, asking if the devs could force one of my part numbers to be reusable as an assembly number… and now they've given me the ability to do it myself. Thanks!

S1mon · September 20

it’s getting to be that time again…😀

rafael_telgmann · September 20

eric_pesty · September 20

Hmm, just saw this (show FS version 2455!):

glen_dewsbury · September 20

I just saw that as well. Way cool for spotting under constrained sketches.