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Twitter: @onshapetricks & @babart1977
Amazing how well it works even there on a pretty low bandwidth connection. I had to try it out a second time. I almost didn't believe it after being there in November and having my friend access it. Kudos to Onshape team. Amazing how low the barriers are now.
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Drawings are in the works. A beta will be released soon. We will notify you as soon as there is something available. Thanks for your feedback.
Drawings are essential to our workflow, and all manufacturing workflows for that matter. Say what you want but today part drawings are the standard. Thats why a machine shop in California can manufacture a part that will fit together perfectly with a part manufactured in Pennsylvania. There is a standard communication method.
Maybe a 2D drawing of a 3D part is not the most efficient way to communicate and describe the desired outcome. However, it has been working for years.
Drawings also hold everyone accountable. Its right there in black and white, in an industry standardized format.
I read on a different thread that the model is the truth... not the drawing. I completely disagree. The model is the intention and the drawing is the truth. Much like in relationships and communication, we may feel one way and communicate something completely different. The model is what we intend to say but the drawing is what we said.
I am a manual machinist, CNC machinist, CAM programmer and CAD modeler. I have an understanding of how everything intricately ties together throughout the design and manufacturing process. Drawings are the standard and are here to stay for quite a while. Plus, drawings are easy to understand.
I have been so impressed with Onshape. I believe it will revolutionize our industry. I am excited.
Just to clear things up from my perspective. I don't disagree that drawings are still needed in today's business climate. I make and check them all day every day. I will most definitely use the drawing tools in Onshape. This thread really has gone on for quite a while and I somewhat apologize for that. I don't want it to become a distraction from plenty of great things here. Also don't want to be that weird crazy uncle type that babbles on, but one more little babble....
I do think we are moving into a time when 2D drawings will be less needed. Eventually they might not be needed at all and the cultural acceptance of methods and practices that use fully annotated models will be the arbiter of the degree of that. I think always connected Full cloud CAD viewable on any device, augmented reality, physical parts having a link to the virtual definition, more intelligent inspection systems, etc... will help to remove some of the arguments against. Acknowledgement of the already flushed out standards in place will be another - many don't know how well fleshed out they already are. The economics of the matter will ultimately play a large part. I think information located once on the model will eliminate data reentry by humans into multiple systems and also greatly reduce the chance of error being introduced - all very real costs. Regardless of how we feel, sometimes the pure economics dictate the direction in the end, because it must - we're all on that train to lowest amount of effort for maximum gain. The full digital definition of a part in all its parameters on the 3 D virtual model will allow a level efficiency that 2D drawings won't be able to touch.
It very much seems that new generation CAD tools better automate the processes that currently exist. It takes another iteration on that new platform to say "Hey, now that we have tools like we have now - why do we use the same process from the tools of yesterday." AutoCAD was little more than the electronic drafting board. It made drawing electronically more efficient than drawing on paper. It took 3D modelling tools to say "hey, why even draw the views." (I know 3D tools were being worked on before AutoCAD- but they weren't made economic to the masses yet). I strongly suspect we will look back and realize that we aren't as needy to those 2Ddrawings as we once were. Onshape is part of a platform change. Here's to hoping Onshape will give us tools to let us decide which is the right path for the right time.
I know, I know... the internet is now ubiquitous, always on, and always there... but I'm a computer tech... it's not. I'm also a hobby machinist and my shop is not exactly computer friendly (and I have free tech support). But, tablets are getting very cheap, some near disposable, and they are a lot more shop-friendly than laptops on up. No keyboards, no fans sucking in garbage, and minimal open ports. Tossing a bunch of them in a shop seems quite do-able and they can just get stuck to the paper holders with double-sided tape for the Luddites. Yes, I understand OS works on a tablet... haven't tried it much but it seems probable. But, it needs to be off-line too.
Setting aside that my shop has no internet (honestly, I go there to get away from computers), or that shops in general make wireless access fun (lots of metal, lots of electrical noise, etc.), the basic problem is that this stuff fails. Maybe I have a bias in this, because I'm the guy that gets called when it fails, but I wouldn't like paying a bunch of machinists to stand around picking their noses because "the internet is down, again." It's bad enough watching a bunch of office workers look at me in desperation, and if they gave it a moments thought (which they don't) they would realise they have a lot more productive things they could be doing than machinists with no drawings to work from.
With an offline file on an offline viewer running on a cheap tablet... problems solved. If you intend on replacing paper, you can't add orders of magnitude more cost and failure points. Just paper that moves and spins, maybe syncing the drawings to a master when the wifi is working. Tablets are now getting cheap enough for that to work; you just need the offline part. If you open-sourced the viewer and settled on an accepted drawing standard, you might even start swaying the legal issues, eventually. Well, the lawyers would probably cringe at that thought the way I cringe when people talk about ubiquitous internet access.
David...
Online = Dynamic = current version with history = Future
"we are moving into a time when 2D drawings will be less needed" is today.
http://www.spiked3.com
And after 2 years from delivery they ask for spare part according to original drawing which they don't have anymore because it wasn't originally their project but their clients or their clients..
With dynamic model (or drawing!) I as a machine shop could save a version which has been actually produced. Even if the changes happen during some problem with machining. Drawings or not, I hope OS will bring us more dynamic in collaboration.
It's not the fault of 2D drawings as a communication tool that designs sent for quotation are subsequently revised multiple times. It's not the fault of drawings when the final signed off design still has errors.
And I can think of companies whose integrity is so compromised that their suppliers would be left vulnerable if the only record of signed-off design was binary bits in the cloud, under the sole and ongoing control of the (dodgy) company. It's worth noting that such companies are also the ones who tend to screw up the most.
When a machine shop or other supplier has a signed-off print as a permanent record in their own custody, that they can bring along to a hearing (in case of a dispute when the wheels fall off), they at least have some degree of protection.
I've just been making some solid models for machining replacement structural members for skis, so C-130 ("Hercules") transport planes can continue landing off-piste in Antarctica, when circumstances dictate.
The 2D drawings I'm working from were drafted in 1959 at Lockheed.
Try working from a digital model (let alone a cloud-based one) in fifty years. Ain't gonna be possible, let alone practicable. The only hardware requirement to interpret a 2D drawing is eyes and a brain, and the only storage imperative is a fireproof safe.
I realise that the digital black hole is tomorrow's concern, but it is today's creation.
The undoubted fact that C-130s are ancient technology does not make them automatically inferior or useless. They're still unmatched, for their intended purpose, and we devise a world where novelty trumps fitness for purpose at our peril.
It's not just that people fifty years hence will not have the ability to rehabilitate worn-out or missing stuff we're building now: in the absence of drawings, they won't even be able to see the design intent, to learn what we have learned.
We may think our job is done when a new product leaves the factory, but that's only true if consumption is the sole purpose of humankind.